End of a Reality
by Blue9TigerDarkMutatedBrock
Summary: A co-written fic of enormous proportions, concocted by the devilish minds of two psychopaths. Pokémon crossed with FFVII. Mutations galore. Glorifies Brock, Giovanni, and Hojo. Scared? Then go ahead and read. We dare you. Chapter 28 up!
1. A Perfect Day

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock (Cheese Masters of the Universe)

*~*~*

**Summary:** A co-written fic of enormous proportions, concocted by the devilish minds of two psychopaths. Pokémon crossed with FFVII. Mutations galore. Revolves around Brock, Giovanni, and Hojo. You think we're freaks NOW? Then go ahead and read. We dare you.****

**Blue9Tiger's Legal Stuff:** Brock, Ash, Misty, Giovanni, etc., and all characters related to Pokémon are copyright to Nintendo, GameFreak, CREATURES, 4KidsEntertainment, TVTokyo?, Half-HP Studio---wait, maybe not. All characters pertaining to Final Fantasy VII are copyright to Squaresoft. Any infringements of copyright are unintentional.

**Blue9Tiger's A/N:** The insanity is BACK. YES! IT IS BACK!!!!!!!! And now, two heads are OFFICIALLY better than one! This is the product of many near-sleepless nights, and the combination of two very twisted minds. We really hope you ENJOY THIS! If you don't, well, it won't matter, but we still hope you do. ^_^ This is the farthest from a normal fanfic you can get---I think. Prepare yourselves for the most warped, freakish, and psychotic series you ever laid eyes on! ::Crushed by a Graveller.:: And now........the REALITY ENDS.  
started: 4/11/01 finished: 1/27/02****

**DarkMutatedBrock's Legal Stuff: **WE OWN EVERYTHING!!!! OUR NAMES ARE SATOSHI TAJIRI AND TETSUYA NOMURA!!! MUAAHAHAHAHA!!!!

**DarkMutatedBrock's A/N: **You like? Then review. REVIEW. Contains pairings typical of me and Blue, so if you want to know THAT little detail, GO READ OUR OTHER FICS!!! Wooo. Self-promotion. So sue me. YES, SUE ME, SQUARESOFT AND NINTENDO LAWYERS!!!!! Um.. right. ^^;; Anyway, this whole thing is based on an RP between me an' my buddy, Blue, which began April 11th, 2001, and has so far gone on continuously and spanned hundreds of pages of written text. Now, we attempt to bring the wonder of evil mutations to the rest of the world....along with some dark/insane humor mixed in. :) I'm from LA. Yeah, THAT explains it.... I apologize for grammatical/punctuation/spelling errors. I forgot to spell check and I'm too lazy to do so now. Sorry, but only ONE reference to Final Fantasy VII in this chapter... Don't worry. More to come! ^_____^ Oh yes, and did I mention that you should REVIEW??!?! We ain't mainstream, but we ain't cheap either!!! ^^;;;

**IMPORTANT NOTE: **We do NOT believe that Ivy raped Brock. The reason that Ivy acts like she does in this fic is because she's a sadist, and enjoys the pain that she inflicts. She's NOT a rapist. Sadist. Rapist. Two very different things. Go buy a dictionary.****

**Genre: **Everything except songs and poetry. Seriously. Mostly Sci-Fi and Adventure. LOTSA WONDERFUL ANGST, however.****

**Main Characters: **Brock, Giovanni, Hojo... and people. :P****

**Rating: **PG-13 for violence, graphic mutations, some implications, profanity, and some raunchiness in MUCH later chapters.

**The Reason Why There's So Much Damned Stuff Before the Actual Fic:**

The gerbils did it.

*~*~*

**Chapter 1: **A Perfect Day

*~*~*

It was a perfect day.

The sun shined brightly over the Orange Islands, and the sound of laughing came from the peachy beaches over the trees, coming upon three travellers--friends, really--who were enjoying the scenery to the point of absolute bliss.

One of them in particular, as tanned as the beachgoers that were so close to them, was feeling especially eased. The French crepes had turned out _perfectly_ that morning, and so far, there had been absolutely _no_ arguments between the threesome. _None._ Perhaps it would have been an insignificant fact to anyone other than him, but in his own mind....

"Aaahh....." The young man sighed, stretching his arms behind his head as he put on his best smile, which was warm enough to heal the heart and cure the soul. "It's shaping up to be a good day, you guys!"

"Yeah! 'Specially with that Pokémon con today! I can't wait!" an energetic Pokémon-master-in-training yelled in answer to his older friend. This day had started out and was still going extremely well. Usually about then Team Rocket would come to hinder them, but so far they weren't showing up. That was a convenient factor, since the annual Valencia Island Pokémon convention was running from dawn to dusk. Misty was less excited about it, as she wrote busily in her diary. It was a small book of pastel colors, with images of Goldeen, Lapras, and a score of Water type Pokémon stamped on it. She guarded it closely, so closely that hardly any humans other than herself had _ever_ set eyes on it, and was writing in it only because this was a perfect day. Any other time she would be turned off by the hampering events during their long "Pokémon journey" and wouldn't even bother writing in it. However, this day was not the case. The brilliant sun shone its warmest without becoming brutal, warming the earth with its rays of life. The air was light, the trees seemed to be smiling, and the whole world seemed to be enveloped in the perpetual mood of happiness. 

"It's such a beautiful day!" she half-sighed as she stated the obvious.

"I'll vouch for that," Brock grinned as Ash plodded happily along. He chuckled and snuck up behind Misty, mock-grabbing for her precious diary. "Oooo, didn't know you had one of those! Hah-hah!" He was in a good mood, even better than usual, and was oblivious enough to not even check the map that he should have been referring to.

"Hey, what are you doing?! Stop it, Brock!" Misty yelled, hinting at slight irritation, holding the diary as concernedly as she held Togepi, who at that moment was plopped in the scarlet backpack that was slung over her smooth shoulder. The little egg was perhaps the only one that was troubled, because it foresaw something disastrous that would happen to it in the future _before_ it could have the chance to enslave the minds of all the people in the free worlds. As for the other Pokémon who travelled outside PokéBalls, Pikachu was walking next to Ash, as good-natured and hyper as his trainer, running across the ground as cheerily as possible, his face turned to the sunlight, mouth open and turned into a wide smile. 

"Pika!!"

"You think it's a great day too, don't you, Pikachu?"

"Pi! Pika!" 

Brock gave a sidelong glance towards Misty. A wicked idea suddenly crept into his now-carefree mind, and he stopped his walking, giving out a gasp as he pointed with his forefinger to somewhere behind Misty. "Look! It's Prima!!!"

"Huh?!!!!! Where?!" the girl's head shot up from her diary, distracted by the mention of the elite Ice type trainer. She completely lost sight of what she was writing, and dropped her pencil onto the ground. After ascertaining that Prima was not there, she shot Brock a dirty look. "Brock, can't you see I'm trying to write?!"

This said, she picked up her pencil and continued to scrawl in the diary. Wouldn't it surprise the other if he actually was able to see what was in it? In truth, every formed letter made some reference to the older boy. 

Seeing that his ploy hadn't worked, Brock gave out a sigh and ran up next to Ash, pulling the map out from one of his vest pockets and resuming his daily routines. "So... where _is_ this Pokémon battling contest anyway?" He asked distractedly as he flipped through the pages of his book, which was entitled: _How to Become a Pokémon Master in the Orange Islands for only Five Bucks a Day._

"It's at the big center near Professor Ivy's house!" Ash answered rather carelessly, forgetting the fact that Brock feared that name with every fiber of his mortal being. 

The latter suddenly stopped, as if he had been impaled through the heart by a blade of diamond-hard ice.

"DON'T....." he choked, his face contorting into a horrible mask of fear and pain. 

"MENTION....." he fell on his side, landing in the middle of the dirt road.

"THAT...... NAME!!!!!!!!!!!!" He was shivering now, clutching his knees to his chest as he lay sideways at his friends' feet.

The two began to sweatdrop, until Misty glared at the culprit with hardened eyes. "You heard him. Don't say THAT in front of him. You KNOW he gets upset, Ash!"

"Huh? You didn't seem to care about it this much," Ash blinked in surprise.

The boy thought a while, trying to conclude something from the given information. "Hey, you're in love with him!!!"

"No, I'm not!" Misty snapped back, a bit too quickly to be believed.

"Yeah, you are!"

"Am not!"

The unusually bright, problem-free day had lapsed into a typical one.

"Just....just...... BE QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!!" Brock suddenly yelled. He seemed to have gotten over his bad spell, and was staggering to his feet. His voice was stern and motherly as he reprimanded them. "Would you two PLEASE just CALM DOWN?!?!?"

Yes, it was a typical day indeed...

After some minor differences had been settled, Ash and Misty regained their stunned reaction to Brock's agonized reaction toward the mention of Professor Ivy. It had been almost two years since Brock had returned from Valencia, but the subject of Ivy continued to hurl him into a pitiable state of mental well-being. The reaction, once somebody thought about it, was astonishingly different than how he acted towards his many rejections by the _supposedly_ more gentle sex. Yet, Ash and Misty simply knew that their older friend was perturbed by that name, and never asked or cared to know WHY. They had all along assumed that it was yet another rejection. After a bit of hard thinking about some notes she had seen Professor Oak jot down about Brock's mental health, the name of an asylum, and a phone number, Misty suddenly realized that Ivy must have done something unspeakable; she felt it was her duty to find out what and nip the problem in the bud.

"Brock?" she asked gently, putting her diary away and bringing out Togepi, the little egg crying for unknown reasons in her arms. (Had a translator been available, its cries could have been deciphered as: _NOOOO!!! My mortal slaves will fall into the hands of the ENEMY!!!)_ Misty's cerulean irises, not dark and brooding like the sea but bright and hopeful as the sky, reflected her concern for the Pokémon Breeder. She stopped walking, ignoring Ash who was trotting on ahead with Pikachu following him like a persistent ray of sunshine, and instead looked at her shaken friend, and asked, her sincerity unable to be doubted: "What did she do to you?"

Brock looked downwards towards the other, still shaking slightly as he wiped quite a bit of sweat off of his brow.

"N-nothing, Misty," he said rather stiffly, as he adjusted his backpack straps once more and began to walk forward again, a bit to quickly for comfort. "Absolutely nothing! I'm fine, see?" He forced a chuckle and a smile, which looked to be more like a grimace under the bright sunlight.

"Yeah, Brock...okay..." Misty accepted his refusal to explain what had happened, though she was slightly miffed at the fact that Brock didn't seem to want to open up to her, to pour his feelings out to her... She simply didn't understand it--didn't understand _boys_ in general, although she had been studying them unrelentlessly over the past four years, (three of them in particular). She finally sighed and broke into a jog to catch up with Ash and Pikachu.

None of the three travellers seemed to notice that their greatest hinderances were hiding in the bushes, and that a dark shadow was hanging over their heads. It was not in the vicinity, yet it was_ there_, threatening and possibly deadly if the outcome of this attack was to go sour. Jessie and her comrades rose out of the bushes, the crimson-haired girl looking quite tense for some reason or another. The usual aura of oblivious confidence that followed her was wavering as she nodded to her partner and jumped out of the foliage, pursuing the younger Pokémon Trainers at a safe distance.

James and Meowth came soon after, both looking a bit more stiff and... strangely, more _professional_ than usual, as if they were trying to impress someone or another.

"Now, remember, guys...." Meowth said through grit teeth to his two comrades. "We hafta get dis one _right,_ or we're REALLY in da cathouse!!!!"

"But Meeeowwth...." James whined in response, losing that evil smirk of his for a moment. "What if we _do_ mess up?!"

"We CAN'T mess up, James!" Jessie replied vaguely, her eyes, the hue of the turbulent ocean, teaming up with her harsh voice to communicate the message. In truth, she didn't know what WOULD happen if they "messed up", as James had so eloquently put it. However, one thing _was_ for certain: the boss was losing patience rapidly. This in mind, she darted through the cover of the foliage ahead of Ash, Misty, and Brock, utilizing Team Rocket's infamous surprise element as she lay in wait for them to cross paths.

Brock suddenly paused from walking hurriedly, and began to.... sniff.... the air lightly as he slowly turned around towards his friends. "Something..... doesn't smell right." He then shook his head slowly, putting a hand to his forehead and rubbing it, as if he had a migraine. ".....Ow.... my head hurts...."

Ash turned around, suddenly jolted awake from his unnaturally joyous mood. He looked about, but saw nothing. He had not seen Brock use his nose before, which was a rather odd feat, to detect danger, and assumed that Brock was still a bit out of it after his "ordeal". Thus; everything must have been normal. Still, he knew how Team Rocket worked, and still commented on the remark for good measure. "Huh? What doesn't smell right?"

"Brock, are you alright?" asked Misty when he began to groan, again betraying some concern for the older boy. She was about to say something else when Jessie bounded out into plain sight, reciting the motto with a strange desperation and lack of confidence that neither Ash nor Misty detected. Little did they know that Jessie, James, and Meowth were being given one last chance. After hundreds upon hundreds of failures, this was their last mission. If they failed, only uncertainty marked their fate.

"Prepare for trouble!" Jessie started, her voice strangely urgent.

"And make it double!" James made his appearance as well, pulling out his rose as he stood next to his partner.

"To protect the world from devestation!"

"To unite the peoples within our nation!"

"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Woooob---"

Meowth jumped on top of the impudent Pokémon. "Eheh--Meeooooowwth!!! Dat's right!!!!!"

Ash's bright face fell into a coastline after a tsunami, moaning, 

"Aw, there goes a perfect day!"

Had he been paying attention, he would have noted that the perfect day had been lost fifteen minutes before.

"What do you want with us _this_ time?!" Misty shouted, holding Togepi in her arms extra tightly.

"Can't you just blast off again _first_ and save us the trouble of battling?" The repetitive words only worsened Brock's strange headache, and he rubbed harder as he glared upwards at the old "friends".

"Blast off again?!" James growled indignantly. "Hey, we ALWAYS put up a good fight, twerp, so--"

"Shut up," Meowth muttered, kicking him in the shin.

"Owwwww!!!!"

"James, Meowth, stop it!!! We're not failing this time!!" Jessie growled, whacking the both of them with her ever-present paper fan. "Remember what we're here for!"

"R-right!!!" James nodded, turning towards the small band of brats. He had developed a strange immunity towards fans of all shapes and sizes, as he was perpetually bombarded by the paper and human versions of them alike. "There's one thing you have wrong, guys...." He addressed the brats, smirking widely.

"And.... what's.... THAT?" Brock responded through ground teeth; the headache was only increasing in pain as the routine progressed.

"We ain't here for yah Pokémon!!!" Meowth exclaimed, laughing in glee as he climbed up in front of Jessie and James. "We're here for YOU!!!!!!"

The feline chuckled once more as he took two of the fingers on his paw and snapped them together, as if in some sort of signal...

Ash and Misty's mouths widened, gasping. They were not sure what the Rocket meant by that, but braced themselves for something terrible. Pikachu fell into an attack stance, electric sacs sparking wildly.

Jessie's face lightened slightly as she struck a dramatic pose and whipped out one of Team Rocket's devices, that seemed to be in nearly infinite supply.

Meowth blinked at the remote control that Jessie held in her hands, and his large eyes instantly narrowed. "Heeeeey!!! Dat's _my_ job!!!!"

"You guys--" Brock said through grit teeth, as Team Rocket argued, his eyes shut as he battled the strange pain. "--should run before they try anything..... again....."

Ash, being his usual obstinate and somewhat hard-headed self, did not comply. He faced the agressors, and shouted, "No way! We're 'gonna fight and beat them like we always do! Pikachu!"

Misty was wavering now, and she clutched Togepi tightly. Something wasn't right about this battle. It was almost as if the outcome was predetermined. Yet, she shrugged it off and stood behind Ash.

On the other side of the battlefield, Jessie glared at Meowth severely, fairly chucking the remote control at his head. "We don't have TIME to bicker, Meowth! Just push the button!!!"

"But you---?!??! AAARRGHH!!!!" Meowth growled, grabbing the remote from the air as it was thrown. "Fine!!!!" He laughed once more as he slammed his paw down on the large, red button."Here goes everythin'!!!"

The large, mechanical head of an oversized Fearow rose out from the surrounding forest and made its way towards the "twerps". It looked strangely fierce, more dangerous than the other contraptions that Team Rocket had come up with during the long years of their unending pursuit.

"Woooooo!!!! Things are looking up, guys!" James yelled with glee, beginning one of his long, maniacal laughs. "Heeeheehahahahaha!!!! We'll _finally_ get that _Pikachu!!!!"_

Meowth's eyes narrowed even further, and his brow twitched as he looked towards James. "We ain't _aimin'_ for da Pikachu dis time, ya idiot!!!! Didn't ya even LISTEN to da boss?!?"

"Ummm......"

However, the usual bickering was only a background hum for our heroes, as they backed away from the huge monstrosity. Brock was forced to stagger, as the pain in his head increased tenfold, and he gave out a cry of pain. _What's wrong with me?!? This headache... it feels like it's.... induced... controlled or something!!!! It feels like.... back... THERE....._

"AAAAAARRRGHHHH!!!!!" Was the only thing that he managed to convery verbally to his friends.

By now, Misty and Ash failed to pay any attention to the other's pain, completely absorbed into the present peril. Bringing down a balled fist, Ash commanded, perhaps a bit too confidently, "Pikachu, Thunderbolt!"

The electrical attack shot through the air at amazing speeds, accompanied by Pikachu's usual battle cry. Yet, there was something protecting the gargantuan weapon, that deflected the attack right back to Ash and the others, resulting in a terrible and unexpected electricution. 

"AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" Ash and Misty yelled, the pain of Pikachu's powerful electricity coursing up through their veins, incapaciting them quite thoroughly. Jessie laughed, but it was not outright: it was the way she would have laughed before the three Pokémon trainers met with Team Rocket: dangerously. 

"Alright, Meowth! Make it dive and catch the twerps!!"

"Pika?! Pikaaaa-Pika!!"

"Prrriii?"

Brock yelled as well as he was thrown backwards from the force of the blow. He crashed into one of the nearby trees, and groaned as he fell to the ground. He felt so woozy... sleepy.... his whole body felt as if it had been burnt to a crisp. As he twitched, the only bit of consolation that he managed to gather from the ordeal was that the headache had disappeared. The pain had gone a bit too quickly for comfort, but it had LEFT, which was all that mattered at this moment.

"Whoa!" Meowth uttered as he stared at the kids and their Pokémon. "It worked! It actually _worked_ dis time!!!"

James gulped, keeping a wary eye on the trio. "Yeah, but.... but isn't this the time that one of them usually gets up and defeats us in an extremely unbelievable manner that's meant to only appeal to Ash fans?"

"Maybe so, James, but not today! Meowth, do it!!!" Jessie growled, her eyes engulfed with determination that this time was unstoppable. Her teeth were clenched tightly; she was willing the outcome to be right. It HAD to be right. They would HAVE to succeed this time. There were no more chances.

"Right, Jess! Hah-haah!!!" Meowth flipped the remote control over and began to twist dials and punch in numbers. "Now... da specialty of dis machine.... Sleep powder!!!!"

The mechanical Fearow opened its jaws, releasing a cloud of bluish-purplish gas. Brock's narrow eyes slowly wandered upwards, widening at the sight in front of him.

"Guys?" He coughed.

The typical day had slipped into the realms of a bad one.

Ash raised his hand to order Pikachu to attack again, but the powder weighed heavy on his eyes, and he and his yellow Pokémon dropped to slumber. It was the same with Misty, and though she struggled to fight it, she and Togepi rapidly fell asleep as well. Brock felt as if lead weights had been attached to his eyelids... pulling them down... down.... down.... He yawned, struggling against the powder, but... it was so strong....

Within seconds, they had all fallen asleep.

James watched in awe. ".......W-we....we _did it?!?"_

Jessie had the compelling urge to embrace James and celebrate, but the work was not done yet. She wasn't acting normally: possibly, the knowledge that this was their last chance was spurring her on to be vicious about the whole excursion. Whatever it was, she was in no mood for games. "Lets tie them up and take them back to HQ!"

"But... but... Jess!" James exclaimed, his eyes widening. "Don't you want to celebrate like we _always_ do?!?"

"Exactly da point!" Meowth retorted, jumping up and swiping madly with his claws at James' face. "And dat's why we _always _lose valuable time!!!"

Jessie longed to celebrate. She yearned for their giddy victory dance just for old times' sake. But she was not about to risk anything this time. It was all or nothing. 

"Meowth's right!" she seconded, grabbing some rope from nearly thin air, starting to secure the trainers and their Pokémon. "James, Meowth, help me with this!"

After being thoroughly beaten, James grumbled something about impudent cats and shouted towards Jessie: "Why don't we just have Mondo drive them back to HQ?!?"

"Hm.... he DOES have a point....." Meowth nodded. "Dere's no way in _meowth_ dat we can DRAG 'em da whole way!"

"See?!" James said, rummaging through his pockets, (which held mostly bottlecaps and spare change). "We can use the radio that the boss gave us!"

Jessie frowned at being overruled, but realized that the boys were right for once. "_I'll_ call him! You and Meowth load the twerps in the jeep!" she ordered while snatching the radio from her partner, as she was the bossy, rash type.

Meowth and James nodded, grabbing the rope and making their way towards the three trainers. Together, they managed to bind them all by hands and fee, tie them back-to-back, and throw the incapacitated Pikachu and Togepi into a rubber sack.

"Dere!" Meowth grinned, stepping backwards in satisfaction as he dusted his paws off. "Dat oughtta do it!!!"

"Wait 'till the boss sees how efficient we've been!" James clapped his hands together. "We'll get promoted for _sure!!!_ Heeeheeheeheeheehee!!!_"_

"We can't celebrate yet, James! We have to actually GET the twerps there!" Jessie growled in disgust at James' lighthearted attitude. She strode over towards the bound trainers and attempted to lift them. Of course, with their combined weight, it was an impossible task.

A mushroom cloud was emitted from Meowth's mouth. "I guess we hafta wait for Mondo, den...."

Both Jessie and James blinked and sighed, dropping down and sitting on the grass. There was silence for a full minute, only interrupted by the ominous chirping of the birds in the forest and a sudden stomach growl that seemed to come from all directions.

Blink.

"Say, Meowth...." James sweatdropped. "Could you see if there's anything to eat in that big twerp's backpack?"

Most obviously, they soon had a feast.

*~*~*

The secretive leader of Team Rocket was seated on the chair in his office. With the amount of monetary resources he had, the man could probably have bought a vast number of chairs, yet he seemed to take pleasure in that single one for reasons unknown. In his mouth was a cigar imported from Jouto, and great puffs of greyish air floated from his mouth, which was currently twisted into a sinister grin. His ever-present Persian sat on his lap, and one hand constantly moved across the silky, carefully-groomed ivory fur; he was externally taciturn. He never seemed to betray his deeper, internal emotions, either exploding anger or a false happiness hiding whatever truly lay inside.

A few minutes later, the cigar had reached its end. He was about to discard it when a knock was heard at the door.

"What is it?" he demanded as he left his chair, placing Persian gently on the floor before he strode towards the door, fairly throwing it open. To greet him were the familiar, but none too pleasant, at least in his esteem, faces of Jessie, James, and Meowth. 

"What do you want?" he growled icily, as he stared down, his triangular eyes immediately narrowing.

Just the sight of the sinister man was enough to make _anyone's_ blood run cold, but to the Rocket members, he was doubly terrifying. Giovanni's primary goal in life, after becoming the respective dictator of the world, of course, seemed to be to intimidate all human life. Whether he achieved this with his stature, his voice, or his orange suit was at his own whim.

"W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w......" James stammered, his eyes wide in fear as he stared upwards at the boss's huge form. Though not as large as some of the other Rockets, the leader of mafia-esque crime team still managed to cut out an impressive figure.

"We gotcha da goods, sir!" Meowth said quickly, covering up the weakness of his teammate. The small, humanized Pokémon turned towards the gladiator-garbed guards that were stationed outside the door. The two burly men walked in, nodding to their boss as they dropped the heavy load at his feet. Or, to be more exact, _three_ heavy loads, although only one of them truly interested the infamous leader of Team Rocket.

Had he known the story behind one of the _other_ trainers that was brought to him, his interest might have aggrandized immensely....

However-- that's another story.

"So, you FINALLY have succeeded," the man stated coldly as he watched the still-unconscious "cargo" fall to the ground, emphasizing that word with as much exaggeration as he could muster. Jessie became nervous at the declaration and sought refuge behind James, jumping behind him. It was only around the boss that her true sensitivity was apparent. There was just _something_ about him that cracked apart that shell of confidence.

Giovanni glanced at the bundles, and then shifted his eyes, gazing directly at the trio. "I am only interested in the eldest. As for the others...throw them in the dungeon. And..." he added, a smile daring to cross his hardened face. "...take all their Pokémon."

"Yes, sir!" said Jessie quickly, in a mad rush to leave. She bent down, grabbed the load that was Ash, and departed as rapidly as possible.

"O-o-orders received!!!" James exclaimed in fright, grabbing Misty under his arm and dashing out the door.

"Meeeeeowwth?" Being a cat, which are inquisitive by nature, Meowth blinked upwards towards the all-powerful, iron-fisted BOSS. "Why DO ya need dis one so badly, anyway? If you're plannin' on recruitin' him, don't put ya hopes up! Dis guy's a softie if I ever saw one!"

Of course, curiosity _did_ kill the cat in the end....

Giovanni's smile quickly faded, and he reverted to a cold, piercing glare, looking down at the small cat, his teeth clenched in a snarl. 

"Do NOT question who I recruit," he commanded, unforgiving eyes fixated on the little Pokémon. With that, he shoved his hand into his pocket, and fairly threw a small paper at Meowth. Then, he slammed the door.

The small feline couldn't even REACT to the fact that Giovanni was recruiting a twerp and had just slammed the door on him. All he could do was stare at that precious piece of parchment as he caught it in his paws, that lovely, printed paper........

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He shouted in complete and utter jubilation, as he raced towards the dungeons to catch up with his comrades.

It was a paycheck.

*~*~*

Meanwhile, Giovanni's phone rang.

The evil man himself grabbed the phone off the hook and shoved it against his ear in irritation. The sound of a phone ringing was one of the most annoying sounds, and it did not help his mood that it bleeped a great many number of times. 

"Who is it?!" he fairly shouted into the receiver.

"Who do you think, Demoni?" Responded the deep, silky, dangerous voice on the other side of the line.

There was only _one_ who had that voice, _one_ who had that confidence, _one_ who even _dared_ refer to him by his last name, and even more, _straight to the man himself...._

"Ivy..." Giovanni whispered, his voice dropping down about ten decibels. There was something at the back of his mind that told him that this woman was bad news. Yet, he was too stubborn to listen to that nagging voice in his brain. 

Regaining his composure, the Team Rocket leader asked, in a very business-like tone: "What?"

"Do you have it?"

"Yes."

There was another thing about her that shortened his conversations even more. He was usually abrupt and brief, but Ivy had the skill to carry verbal transactions to short questions and one-word answers.

"Hm... Hah-hah...." The muffled chuckle was heard from wherever the purple-haired demoness might have been residing. "You've fulfilled _your_ half of the deal, then. I'm surprised your.... henchmen didn't fail once more."

There was a moment of silence.

"Have your men bring it to the HQ labs," there was another chuckle. "It's _my_ turn for some... entertainment."

Another pause.

"See you there."

Click.

Giovanni was externally unshaken by the brief exchange, but mentally he was becoming more apprehensive of her. Unfortunately, over-ambition led him to shove the suspicions from his mind, and he exited his office, looking towards the guards. 

"You there, bring this boy to the labs!"

The Romanesque-armored guards sprang into motion, lifted up the bundle, and began walking towards the destination.

*~*~*

She was waiting just outside the door, leaning against the wall with an amused expression on her face... one of a housecat. A small, outwardly harmless housecat with a mouse just between its paws......

Ivy's smirk only widened as Giovanni and his men drew near... and her eyes did the same in unsurpassed ecstasy as she glanced at the precious, immobile cargo that they were carrying. Brock couldn't possibly have the slightest clue that he was so near to his greatest fear, as he lay limp in the arms of the "Roman" guards.

"........Good."

The Rockets approached the lady that seemed perhaps too excited about this entire venture. They seemed to be growing more cautious, though the fact was not shown on their faces; the leader was grinning as was to be expected, and the guards were stolid and expressionless, doing what they had to do and nothing more. 

The guards reached the door, and presented their load to her, extending their arms simultaneously. The other man advanced again, finally finding something that he could say to this woman who was _never_ at a loss for her own words. 

"This had better be good."

Ivy only chuckled in response, still staring at the young man in front of her as she answered Giovanni. " 'Good'... the description that I just so recently used...."

She extended a hand towards the boy's head, which was still in the guard's arms, and stroked the right side of his face lightly, just beside his eye and nose, as one would do to their long-lost.... pet.

She smiled, and narrowed her eyes.

"As I was saying, Demoni, 'good' is a viable understatement."

Though he refused to admit it, Giovanni LOATHED how Ivy picked at every word he said. It was possibly his motivation for keeping the conversations brief. 

"I certainly hope so."

Another thing that irked him was how she handled humans. Believing in the superiority of man, the Team Rocket leader was puzzled at Ivy's behavior towards fellow human beings. Though he did not treat his subordinates especially well, he didn't go so far as to act as if they were... ANIMALS.

Ivy paused a moment, closing her eyes and breathing in.... something. Was it triumph? Revenge? Some kind of grudge that she was letting out after years of suppression? Before Giovanni knew it, her eyes had opened towards the boy again, and were narrowed. There was a strange smile on her face.... as if she knew something dark. Something secret. Something that Giovanni did not.

"It's unfair to hope when you haven't got a prayer."

With those cryptic words, she whirled around and walked into the lab with a single step, leaving Giovanni to decipher whether the words had been meant for the boy.... or for _him._

In fact, Ivy's comment was very troubling for the ominous man. What could she have meant by that? Ivy was looking directly at Brock, yet the sentence struck fear into his tainted, corrupted heart, and he couldn't help wondering if she was saying it to him. Yet, there were things of greater importance to be thought of, and he attempted to follow her into the laboratory.

However, there was little time for Professor Ivy to explain the bubbling chemicals... the frothing liquids.... the medical instruments that lay on countless tables and racks.... the table, with the leather straps hanging off of it, in the middle of the entire collection....

For that was when the subject began to wake.

"Uuuuungghhh...." There was a muffled groan that came from the arms of the "gladiators", and for a moment, Ivy tensed.

"Strap him down," she commanded curtly, to _Giovanni's_ personal guards.

"NOW."

This was the only time the guards assumed an expression, and they looked at each other in a deep puzzlement. However, their superior thought it best to not argue with her, and said, in a tone that could be considered gentle compared to his normal tone of voice: "Do as she says." 

The guards obeyed without question, strapping down whom they imagined to be a quite terrified Pokémon Breeder to the table, securing him tightly on the flat, even surface.

However, instead of terrified, Brock seemed rather... disoriented, as if waking up from a long sleep that had drained his energy rather than restoring it. "Uuurgh...." He attempted to sit up, but found it impossible, as if he was chained.... strapped...

STRAPPED.

Images, visions suddenly racked his brain, and he cried out as he was reminded of experiences that he would have rather forgotten....

"Where am I...?" He mumbled incoherently. He suddenly tensed and let out a yell. "WHERE THE HELL _AM_ I?!?!??!"

Giovanni might have liked to know that too, as his eyes scanned about the laboratory. All manner of detestable tubes, machines, the type of technology that was often unreliable, that was hard to trust, made by scientists not necessarily affiliated with Team Rocket. And then there were the SYRINGES. A memory darted into his mind and then vanished. He seemed to have lost the it, and had no intention to try and retrieve it. 

He was hesitant to answer Brock, and considered letting Ivy do the talking, which was something that she was apparently very good at. He noted that Brock seemed very uncomfortable in this situation. More so than others. He wondered why. Ivy never explained the details of WHY she wanted this specific boy. Come to think of it, she never explained anything in detail..at least to him.

The demoness smiled and chuckled, putting her hand to her mouth, as if Brock's reaction was incredibly cute and adorable. "Awwwwwww, sweetie.... You don't even remember what I did to you, do you?

Brock froze.

His eyes widened.

His jaws opened up to scream, but his throat was caught.

He began to shiver, then shudder, then shake.

"No......... It can't........can't...."

The fear in those eyes....

It was indescribable.

Ivy smiled sweetly once more, laying a hand on Brock's cheek. "Welcome back."

".......Get...get your hands off me.... " Brock whispered, still paralyzed with terror, staring at the cobwebbed ceiling.

"And why's that? Are you afraid? Of what?" Ivy cooed, leaning towards his face.

"......Don't touch me......"

"Why?"

"Just.... LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Brock suddenly _screamed,_head lashing out and _snapping_ with his teeth at Ivy's hand as she wisely recoiled.

Giovanni may have come off as a simpleton to Ivy, but he was intelligent enough to decipher that. It was then no wonder that Ivy had wanted to capture Brock.

He was a human experiment. 

As he listened to the ongoing conversation between superior and inferior, his suspicions of her were screaming louder and louder inside his head. The man almost.....ALMOST sympathized with Brock, and felt the boy was justified in trying to defend himself. He noticed nothing about that very subtle hint of inhumanity. Ivy's experiment LOOKED human, therefore, he MUST have been HUMAN. It was a simple answer.

Brock's eyes were consumed by anger, complete rage spurred on by fear... and something else, something buried that had been triggered by the sight of the sadistic woman. He ground his teeth together, a growl forming at the back of his throat as he kept his eyes fixed on her face.

"Let.....me......OUT......" He snarled through grit teeth, _baring_ them at the good Professor. "LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!" He began to struggle at the straps with all his might, wriggling, writhing, crying out in complete agony and turmoil.... of a coming doom.

The leader of Team Rocket watched in silent horror as the amorality unfolded, and again saw no abnormality when Brock bore his teeth. He considered it rather normal, in fact. His whole mentality about this was that humans, no matter how inhuman they acted, were still human. It was the GENES that directed this, not any type of behavior. This still furthered his pity, and it took every ounce of restraint to keep him from shouting "enough". Strange it was that he was so moved by the sight... The man had ordered robberies, assasinations, even torture, and yet.... The visage of the young man in pain disturbed him so _totally...._ As if it reminded him of something... someone....

"Hah-hah...." Ivy laughed at what she considered to be Brock's "antics" instead of seeing it for what it truly was: the frantic desperation of a doomed, tortured soul. "That won't help you at all, sweetie. In fact...." She turned away, stationing herself at one of the worn, well-used computer terminals. ".....You're just proving that my... _playing_ with your mind achieved my..... hm-hm..... _essential_ goals."

As Ivy proceeded with her "work", Giovanni was actually beginning to be SICKENED by the sight, by the way Ivy taunted her little experiment, as if he had always belonged to her, as if he was PROPERTY, and was very close to leaving the lab in disgust. Had Brock been a Pokémon, he may have approved, appraised, even encouraged Ivy with her work. But, as Brock looked in every way, a human, there was no way he could be otherwise. Such were the musings of the Team Rocket leader.

Seeing and LOATHING the fact that she was_ right_, the victim of the whole fiasco slowly calmed, realizing that his teeth had been gnashing, and he had been lashing out with every muscle in his body.... Which had suddenly become..... strangely strong.......

In place of brooding, he instead went to his original question.

"Where.... where am I.....?" Brock said weakly, his voice on the verge of breaking. He had the look of someone who had been recently possessed.... and excorcised.

There was a negative comment about this complete lack of ethics bouncing on the tip of Giovanni's tongue, but he could not seem to force it out. After all, wasn't he _known_ for being _merciless_ and _heartless_?

Ivy flashed her teeth at her specimen's humble request, and then turned her head towards Giovanni, arching an eyebrow in amusement. "Why don't YOU answer that..... Demoni?"

There was a moment of silence.

Giovanni... was strangely... shaken. It took him nearly five minutes for him to regain his composure, and even then, it was fairly muddled. The guards, who were silent as usual, witnessed the very odd answer to Brock's inquiry. 

"You are in....."

He turned to his GUARDS, eyes wider than normal. "Where is this, again?"

Ivy smiled at Giovanni's large back. "What's wrong, Demoni? _Cat_ got your _tongue?"_

Brock was too disoriented in mind and body to react to the strange response. Besides, he didn't even KNOW this.... "Demoni". All he knew was that he wanted to be HOME... home....

Giovanni didn't hesitate to show his irritation with the scientist's snide comments, and turned around, narrowing his eyes at the woman. Yet, he could find no retaliation save for a pitiful order, that could almost be akin to a PLEA. 

"Enough with your wise-acre remarks!!" he barked, putting his eyes back towards Brock. He had once, long ago, considered to fund human experimentation. This savagery thoroughly convinced him not to even THINK about it.

"Then what are you here for? Do you even _remember?_" Ivy said in her persistent low voice. "The deal...? Your POWER?"

"Yes, I...." He trailed off. There was something about that word...that simple eight-letter word, that caused that flitting memory to return, and it lingered for a quarter of a second before it disappeared again. But in that quarter of a second, the message of the memory conveyed something so terrible that it completely shut him off. He was unable to respond to Ivy, and stood there, ramrod-straight, stiff and proud as usual, but his eyes blank and his mouth hanging open. 

Persian, who was on the floor at his master's side, meowed softly, tilting his head at an angle. 

"What, Demoni?" She noticed the look, and cocked her head to the side. "You don't want to go through with this?"

"Home.... I want... to go.... home......" Brock said just above a whisper. It's doubtful that anyone heard him.

Ivy looked towards Brock, sighing. There was a needle attatched to a a tube and a pouch of liquid in her hand--an IV that nurses used in hospitals.

"Well....." She turned her back to Giovanni, saying a bit loudly, "I suppose I could always find _OTHER_ employers......."

A sly smirk accompanied this, one that Giovanni _didn't _see.

_Hm.... Rufus is paying me TWICE his measley amount already...._

Giovanni stared, and exhaled loudly, finally giving in. He nodded reluctantly, no longer smiling at this, and he failed to see Ivy's smug expression. 

"Fine. Proceed."

Ivy turned around and smiled.

"Thank you, Demoni."

She rounded the table, craning her neck behind her back and grinning at him.

"You're an..... _angel._"

She hung the pouch of liquid from a hook stationed above the bed and grabbed Brock's left arm, squeezing it mercilessly.

Giovanni was well aware that he had sealed the boy's fate. He was not proud of this, nor did he feel accomplished or satisfied as usual. The entire deal reeked with the kind of dishonesty that he could never posess.

Steeling himself for the sight, he watched the abominable events begin to unfold.

"Please.... please, _don't......_Ivy......" Brock whined, whimpering almost, like a ginuea pig about to be dissected. "You're a lunatic... you're CRAZY... Please.... no...."

"Sorry, sweetie," she smiled. "It's all a part of the game..... You'll thank me later."

She twisted the needle into the crook of Brock's elbow, causing him to cry out. He began to sweat as chemicals flew through him.... a thousand icy hands... grabbing at him. His body became rigid, as ever muscle seemed to tense underneath the straps.

"These are only the primary injections," Ivy explained as she walked towards the computer terminal. "The fun is yet to begin...." She punched some information into the keyboard, staring at the screens.

"Oh..." she murmured off-handedly, waving a hand dismissively. "I believe your guards would prefer to leave at this moment.... Tell them to flip the soundproof switch at the door as they exit, would you?"

Ivy's employer wished to call off the whole deal more than ever as he saw Ivy enter the information, but he was somehow blinded...by the lust for power. All he could do was stare at the boy, at Ivy, at the countless monstrosities of science that adorned the mildew-infested walls....

Perspiration lathered Brock's body, soaked through his clothes.... His vision went in and out of clarity as he stared at the man.... and the woman... the loathesome, loathesome woman.....

"Help....." He croaked out weakly, scrunching his eyes shut. "Oh, _God......_ Misty.... Ash..... HELP......"

When Ivy noticed that Giovanni had not sent his guards away, she said coldly, still staring at the screen: "I'm warning you... You DON'T want any unnecessary witnesses...."

Giovanni stared back down at the boy, the tormented, tortured soul strapped on the table, and then looked back up at Ivy, clenched his teeth, and ordered the armored guards,

"Go."

One left rather eagerly, but the other one lingered, ducking his enormous form out of sight, but still present.

"Hm... Hah-hah!!!! Just what I was looking for!" Ivy suddenly and unexpectedly _giggled_ at the screen in front of her. "Take a look at the screen, Demoni. The _ferociousness_.... the _power_.... the _discipline...._"

Brock could see as well, but tears blurred the sight before him. All he could see was the dark outline of an even darker form.....

Giovanni walked over to the screen, and for someone as vicious as himself, he was absolutely horrified with what he saw. There on the screen was an extremely dark brown mixed with black.....CREATURE, that was most definitely NOT human. Its closed mouth bared sharp fangs that were an inch long, wild and beastlike in every way. The eyes were two narrowed slits of glowing crimson, burning with the pure wilderness from which it seemed to have sprung.....except that it would be springing from a very _different_ source. At the ends of the fingers, or what were supposed to be, at least, were giant, knife-like claws, with only four to speak of on each hand, which were swamped with scales...reptillian scales...

He blinked before looking at it further, wondering what kind of sick, sick, SICK mind Ivy had. He then ran his eyes down the chest, which was moderately muscled, and the arms...that seemed to have long, protruding spikes that stood at about six inches high, and the feet were similar to the hands, but longer, at least making the creature proportionate. Yet, the back was curved slightly, and that flesh covering the bent spinal cord ended in a long tail, at the end of which was the trademark of so many demons and devils, a sharp, triangular-shaped end, that stood as long as nearly three-quarters of the creature's total height. Perhaps the most notable characteristic of the monster, however, was the hair.....it was the only thing that anyone could use to identify it as the human from which it was formed. Seeing THIS brought back all lost words that he had been dying to convey.

"You....are.....a.....twisted...bitch."

*~*~*

**Enjoying so far? Review and maybe we'll continue. Ah, hell. We'd continue it anyway. Just be benevolent and give us some input, yes? Yes.**

**TO BE CONTINUED......**


	2. And Into the Lion's Fur

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**sy-ringe**, (se rinj´, sir´inj) **n. [** Gr _syrinx_, a pipe**] **a device consisting of a tube with a rubber bulb or piston at one end for drawing in a liquid and then ejecting it in a stream: used to inject fluids into the body, etc.

--Webster's English Dictionary

*~*~*

**Chapter 2: **And Into the Lion's Fur

*~*~*

"You....are.....a.....twisted...bitch."

"Why, thank you," Ivy smiled softly with an undertone of pure sadism. One might have interjected and said that "pure sadism" was an oxymoron, but somehow, she managed to pull it off with flying colors.

Brock groaned as those same chemicals coursed through him again, and again, and again as he continued to stare up at the screen. He finally narrowed his eyes, regaining his vision. He gasped and recoiled in pure horror at the nightmarish image. 

"What......what _IS_ that......thing?!"

"Care to clue him in?" Ivy turned her face towards Giovanni, who was standing close to her--dangerously close, as Ivy was _not_ the most trustworthy person around.

It was only towards Ivy that the severe Team Rocket leader showed his true emotions; whenever he met with the woman, he somehow became.... humble. He would lax into tenseness, if such a thing could ever be possible. Coming to think of it, he had _always_ felt uncomfortable around her, as if he was being dwarfed. Although his height exceeded hers by at at least a foot, she somehow managed to be just as tall as him, and this perturbed him immensely. Even so, as he turned towards Ivy's pitiful victim, he lapsed into the uniform manner that he regarded everyone else with: terse and blunt. 

"That is the monster you are about to be transformed into."

And one would have to admit that he could not get much more frank than that.

Brock stared at the screen. His mind was still half-shut down and all he could do _was_ stare at that hideous monster, the horrifying abomination..... that _supposedly _was to be his future self.

The frightening thing was...

He didn't doubt it.

Brock began to chuckle. Then laugh. Then proceed to giggle maniacally, shaking his head violently as tears coursed down his face.

"Haha... Hah-hah..... HAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!!!!!!!!"

For a brief period of time, Brock the Rock, the solid, sensible member of Ash's little band, completely lost his marbles.

Giovanni was silent through the boy's brief tenure of insanity, and was shifting his eyes about, trying to keep them out of contact with Ivy's deceptively relaxed irises, as if her gaze could turn one into stone. 

"Yes, isn't it hilarious?" Ivy giggled once more at Brock's mental torture, oblivious--perhaps--to Giovanni's strange suspicions about her. "Your friends won't even recognize you... At least, they won't _want_ to recognize you.."

Giovanni's lip suddenly curled. He disapproved of the way she played with the boy's mind. A HUMAN mind. It disturbed him to see her enjoyment in _lowering_ a superior being, as humans were the most advanced, mentally and physically, of all the five kingdoms. Besides insects, the humans were at the top of the food chain, though he wasn't aware of the latter fact, and even if he had been informed that his assumptions were incorrect, he wouldn't have listened or cared.

Brock's laughing stopped arubtly, and he stared at the screen. That creature... so familiar... somehow... and yet, so revolting and mortifying...... No, he _couldn't_ let her do this, he _couldn't_ let Ivy..... experiment.... on him... _again...._

But then again, what were his options? Even with all his struggling, the straps remained firm and secure, and the chemicals continued to be pumped into his bloodstream. Oh, the pain of that, the pain of an alien force seeping into his flesh, his soul, his brain....

"Ash... Misty...." He said, quietly, almost subconsciously. "ASH.... MISTY....."

Ivy paused, only long enough to grin perniciously at her subject before she turned back towards the new needles that she was preparing.

"AAAAAASH!!!!!!!!!! MIIIIIISTYYYYYY!!!!!!!" Brock finally yelled in pure torment, in a voice so full of pain and torture that there was no _doubt_ that his friends could hear his cries from the dungeons below. In fact, it seemed as if the guards had _forgotten_ to flip the soundproof switch, as the first one had assumed that the second would perform the task. However, the second had stayed behind, and it was Ivy's bad luck that the "twerp's" cell was just below the lab on the adjacent floor.

Ash was jolted out of the induced sleep from the agonized cries coming from above, and his eyes shot open, looking around the small cell he and Misty were now in. After verbally noting that Pikachu was gone, he shook Misty awake, and her eyes slowly opened, the effects of the Sleep Powder finally dissipating.

"Ash?! Where are we?!" Misty demanded in a hushed voice, after her initial groaning. Her cerulean eyes darted, and the sight of cold iron bars entered her line of vision. 

"I don't know, Misty!!"

She realized something else, and pure, instinctive terror washed over the orange-haired girl. Three minus one equalled two. 

"Where's Brock?!"

"I dunno, but he's in big trouble!" Ash answered, in a tenor much more grave than usual, knowing that whatever was happening to their friend was no laughing matter.

"What's that THING?!??!?!" Brock's voice suddenly came at a high pitch yell, in answer to Misty's question. "NO..... NO MORE NEEDLES.... Oh, GOD..... DON'T TOUCH ME!!!!!! DON'T YOU _DARE_ TOUCH ME........"

However, the voices from above were muffled, and all they could hear were some select phrases as the horrible events unfolded.

"You hear that, Ash?" 

"Yeah, someone's talking!"

"I can't hear it... maybe if I stand on you, we can hear what they're saying!"

"Uh...okay," Ash agreed reluctantly, rooting himself in the middle of the small cell. Misty shakily climbed up on his shoulders, both trainers wobbling unsteadily. She awkwardly placed her ear to the ceiling, and when she heard what was unfolding above the floor, she paled, almost losing balance.

"Oh...my...GOD....." she whispered.

"Perhaps you'd prefer a concoction down your throat, sweetie...." Came a strangely familiar voice.

"No... NO... NOTHING!!!! I DON'T WANT ANYTHING!!!!!" Yelled one that was even more distinct.

It was then Giovanni attempted to intervene. This was a rather amazing feat, since he usually stuck up for no one, be they alive, dead, or somewhere in between.

"Are the needles neceesary?"

"Necessary? They are essential. How do you _suppose_ that we'll be able to induce the changes?" Ivy's answer was heard.

Giovanni's next response would have shocked anyone that had worked under him. 

"Could you at least give him anasthetics?"

_"Anasthetics?!?"_ Ivy suddenly exclaimed, in complete and utter _shock _towards Giovanni's inquiry. "ANASTHETICS?!? Why... that would defeat the whole PURPOSE of this venture!!! I must OBSERVE the _specimen's _reaction, the CHANGES..... How _else_ do you suppose that I can record my findings?!?"

A thought ran through the narrow canyons of the questioner's mind: it is so...inhumane. Yet he did not voice his opinion, now thoroughly convinced that this was a dangerous, perhaps mentally ill woman.

"Misty, what're they doing to Brock?!" Ash suddenly cried out, Misty's heels digging into his shoulders.

"Ash.....you...DON'T want to know..." Misty whispered in a muted voice. She closed her eyes, but that did not block out that fearsome word, that implied the unknown and the dangerous. _Changes... what do they MEAN by "changes"??!?_

However, her thoughts were interrupted as a weak prayer was heard, in stark contrast to the maniacal yelling that the voice had just given out. "Help me, God, please help me....."

It seemed as if the table was just above where Ash and Misty had positioned themselves.

Misty's eyes began to tear slightly, and she wiped a falling drop delicately from her paling face. She knew what was going on: she could not see it, but it was almost...blaring in her ears, what was happening a floor up from where they were situated. She yelled up to the wall and what was beyond it: "We're here for you...please hang on, Brock!"

Ash couldn't hear too much from where he was standing, but two of the voices rang a bell in his somewhat dull mind. One.....definitely was Ivy, but the other..he had heard it several times before, but did not strike him as anyone he knew, or so he thought.

"Misty....." Brock heard the shout of encouragement, but his voice stayed quiet, as to not draw attention. It was panicked and filled with some kind of wild desperation. _"Misty...."_

A loud bleep came from the computer.

"Ah.... the preliminary chemicals have settled. His nervous system is prepared.... However, first we must begin the blood transfusion....."

The clinking of metal, another cry of pain from Brock as Ivy took his _right_ arm and administered two more needles into _that_ as well.

"See, Demoni? _This_ one is connected to a mechanism that will pump new... enhanced blood in, while _this_ one will be used to pump the current liquid and antigens out. Very simple."

Giovanni uncharacteristically and unintentionally blanched. SYRINGES......at the end of which protruded those long, thin needles, hateful and abominable. He was not quite sure why he hated those objects. There was something about the sight of them that made him recoil in loathing. By this point, he was not listening to the scientist's explanation, just staring at the poor boy that had been pumped so full of liquids by use of those NEEDLES. 

The bones in Misty's legs grew shaky as her brain registered the voices on the upper floor. Blood transfusions...enhanced blood? Not normal blood, but strange, unknown blood? She was now very pale, and had to latch onto the uneven parts of the ceiling in order not to fall. She closed her eyes again, praying to every god that she knew of to let her friend be okay. Yet, how could ANYONE be OKAY after _that_...torment?

"NO.... IVY.... NO....." 

"Now.... _how_, Demoni, do you expect me to connect him to the computer terminal unless his chest is bare, mm?! Argh, I suppose if you want things done, you have to do them yourself...."

There was the sound of clothing being ripped from Brock's upper body, and then a small crackle of electricity, followed by yet another yell.

"AAAAAAAAARRRGHH!!!!"

"There... those sensors should--Ah, yes. Heartbeat, blood pressure.... and brainwaves from the implant under his skull. Hah-haaaa.... I _knew_ that that device would prove handy.... It certainly helped when your _Rockets_ attacked, mm? Migraines can be _extremely_ crippling...."

It was then that Misty let out a piercing shriek of terror, and she toppled off of Ash's shoulders, the both of them falling onto the ground with a hard thud. The girl was shuddering from what she had heard, things that only a mad scientist out of books or movies would say. Her skin was crawling with swarms of goosebumps, and she looked upwards, her mouth quivering at the gruesome "conversation".

"Brock...!" She choked, her fear escalating rapidly.

Ash looked at Misty, blinking. Since he was on the bottom, he couldn't really discern the words, but he couldn't help shuddering at Brock's agonized screams. However, at the back of his mind , he continued to try and place a face on the other voice. _Wonder why it sounds so familiar..._

Ivy smiled at her subject, whose eyes were filling up with tears of pain. "Now we activate the pumps....."

She fairly waltzed over to the mechanism that both the tubes and the needles were connected to. She smiled at Brock once more, and leaned down, flipping the "On" switch.

Brock's eyes weakly wandered towards the tube, too tired... too tired to resist.... to feel pain.... His blood was being drained out one of them, and he stared longingly at that red liquid of life as it flowed through the plastic encasing.

And then....

He looked towards the other tube.

BLACK.

Blood as black as midnight, the color of a raven's feather, the hue of a starless, midnight sky.....

The tears fell from his eyes to his cheeks.

".....Monster....." he whispered, and then gasped in pain as he felt the new blood, the artificial black liquid, move backwards somehow, reversing the flow of his bloodstream.

"Yes. 'Monster'," Ivy stepped back, watching as her specimen lost all strength. His shivering skin was slowly, ever so slowly changing from being the color of tanned olive to a strange, greyish hue. "A very good description of what you will soon be."

".............Monster.........."

At this point, the organizer of the whole venture could not take his eyes off of the pure black blood in the tube, just waiting to be infused into that unfortunate young boy. He had little time to contemplate the implications of that dark, ebony concoction when he saw the beginnings of the mutations. The process looked horribly slow, crawling, staggering, and that sluggishness probably increasing the agony of the subject. The human lying there was slowly becoming inhuman, CHANGING into...TRANSFORMING into...BECOMING.....what the tormented boy so recently described.

"A monster...." Giovanni murmured in suppressed awe.

Brock suddenly choked, and then groaned.

"Don't be so eager to feel pain, _now_," Ivy smirked, turning away. "The blood is only a special addition. to your body.... Your actual makeup can ONLY be determined by God almighty.... and THIS......."

Ivy whirled around, her eyes engulfed in flames as she held up a syringe.

A syringe.

A syringe, filled with a liquid so dark that the black blood _paled_ in contrast.

A syringe, with a point so sharp that it could tear through the flesh of any being.

A syringe, so small that it could be wielded with deadly precision and surprising force.

Unbelievable, unimaginable potential... riding all in that small, glass syringe.

"The syringe...." Ivy murmured, her eyes narrowing in satisfaction at the concoction. "Is mightier than the sword."

Again, there was the cruel mention of the syringes. Giovanni scowled inwardly, shifting his weight in discomfort. Someone so much of control of himself fearing the sight of a _needle?_ It was bewildering. 

Yet one thing that Ivy had said lifted the guilt from his conscience. By saying that Brock's makeup could only be determined by God almighty, (and the syringe, but he didn't want to think about _that)_, he thought she was implying that possibly the boy was born this way. Maybe the boy actually _was_ a Pokémon. If that was the case, he had nothing to agonize over. Pokémon were lower than humans in nature's hiearchy in his view. Thus, he grew slightly less disturbed as he watched the process unfold, and gradually more acceptant of this horrible, unspeakable deed. The...experiment was slowly losing his... no, _it's_ humanity, and the tormented boy, that had done nothing to deserve such barbaric treatment seemed to be doomed to become part of the _true_ Pokémon World in every way.

Brock, who now had taken on the greyish hue of the rocks that formed his family's legacy, could only widen his eyes as Ivy approached him with the mortifying, fear-inducing object. He was paralyzed with terror once more, staring at it, as if it had a strange, hypnotic power over all that it was directed at.

"Gemini," Ivy addressed him, bringing the syringe up with her slender hands over her specimen's bare chest. Her eyes, although narrowed, seemed almost red, hellish, and in Brock's sight, she seemed to be the very encartion of Satan him--or her--self. Everything blurred behind the sadist, and then she drifted out of sight as well, leaving only the syringe visible, as clear as crystal and at the same time as opaque as night.

He heard the distant sound of words.

"May God have mercy on your soul."

She struck downwards.

*~*~*

There was a yell. A horrible yell which soon escalated into a scream, and then a wail. It managed to drift down lazily into the cell below. Slowly. Painfully.

"Did you hear that?!"

"Yeah...what're they doing to Brock?!"

"Some kind of....." Misty's breath was ragged as she tried to bring herself to stand up on her unstable feet. "..torture!!"

Ash balled up his fist, and shook it in anger at himself. If he had simply listened to Brock and just RAN.....RAN from their enemies that they usually defeated so swiftly, then they wouldn't be in Team Rocket's dungeons, and Brock wouldn't be elsewhere, getting tortured by the two-faced Ivy and that other man that was on the above floor. Their day could have continued to be perfect, if it wasn't for his ill-made decisions. Misty made this known to him loudly and clearly, and very nearly punched the younger boy in the head.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! If you weren't so gung-ho about beating Team Rocket, Brock wouldn't be getting...._tortured_ like this!!!"

Although Ash agreed wholeheartedly, his excessive pride caused him to retort: "Oh _yeah?!?_ Well, maybe _you_ should have listened to him too, you dumb, diary-obsessed--"

However, the fight that was about to ensue was suddenly interrupted by a hellish, unearthly sound. A roar. A roar of pain, sorrow, regret, guilt, anger, hate, disgust, but most of all... shame.

"HUUUUURRRROOOAAAAARRGHHH!!!!!!!!!"

It was inhuman. Not of this world or the next. A guttural cry that somehow attempted to convey a thought, an idea, and fell flat on its face into mud in the process. A deep, black pool of mud....

It must have lasted a minute. Maybe more. Perhaps it went on for a day, a year, a lifetime. It was impossible to tell as it continued, and then weakened suddenly, as if choking, and stopped.

In the silence that followed, one could have heard a pin drop. The only sound that dared tread upon that bone-chilling moment was the dew that collected on the bricks of the cold dungeon, dripping downwards.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

One got the strange idea that the liquid might have been blood, dripping off of the hand of a body impaled upon a spear, or perhaps crucified on a wall, as the silence prevailed over all life in the rank prison.

And yet, it was an omen.

Misty's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates--no, platters. What WAS that roar? That tremendous din that struck unspeakable terror echoed and resounded in Misty's ear, and she gasped in horror, clamping her hands over her ears so that the monstrous sound would not penetrate. But its message, so forlorn, so morose, so full of anguish and pain, communicated itself to Misty, and she KNEW it was Brock. But...it didn't SOUND like Brock. He was human: this sound was the furthest THING from human. It was the voice of a monster, something that didn't quite fit into the scheme of nature. And when the silence came, she sobbed softly on Ash's shoulder, and Ash did his best to try and awkwardly comfort her, though it wasn't working in the least bit.

Another voice broke the silence, muffled, quiet, and filled with satisfaction and triumph.

"It'd be wise if you left it somewhere to get used to its new.... form for a while. It would be dangerous to use it so soon after.... the Changes."

A pause. One of those all-knowing, omnipotent pieces of silence that seemed to be timed too well, too perfectly.

"I suggest the lower dungeons."

The unmistakable sound of a PokéBall opening and closing further broke the silence, and Misty could hear heavy steps walk out of the room above them and then fade in the distance. Misty was just about to let out a sigh of relief when she heard new steps, similar to the first, descend towards where Ash and herself were. The surrounding darkness made it impossible to see past the rusty bars, but her ears could detect the sound of a cell door swinging open and then shut, in between the two sounds a brief flash of white light. The figure lingered for a moment, and then was gone, walking back up the stone stairs that were falling into disrepair.

After the danger had left, both trainers found their curiosity getting the best of them; they were eager to find out what Pokémon it was that was left in the cell opposite theirs. 

"Team Rocket's so mean....they put a Pokémon in this place?" Misty shook her head, temporarily releasing worries in her mind about Brock... and the roar.

"Wonder what kind it is!" Ash dug for his PokéDex, that had been one of the few things that were left on his person save for his clothes, and aimed it at the darkness. Dexter came alive, and said in its monotone:

"This Pokémon cannot be identified."

"Can't be identified...?" Misty echoed, her hand on Ash's shoulder as she looked over it. "Hmmm...." She narrowed her cerulean eyes and leaned forward, trying to get a glimpse at the strange animal. "That's weird."

"Hey!!!" Ash exclaimed after a moment of "deep" thinking. "Maybe it's a new species or something!!!! If I can catch it or record it on Dexter, maybe I can show Professor Oak!!!" The ambitious young trainer clenched his right hand into a fist and grinned. "Hah-hah!!! That'll show that Gary!!! Maybe if I can get Tracey to sketch it....."

"Be quiet, Ash!!!!" Misty tensed as she whispered, her eyes widening as they detected a faint movement from the opposite cell. "I think it's waking up!!!"

There was the strange sound of a metallic object scraping against the stone floor, and then rough, heavy breathing, the inhaling and exhaling sounds that an Ursaring might have made after a small scuffle. Then, a slight whimper from the darkness, and suddenly....

Two bright orbs red light, points of crimson intensity, seemed to suddenly appear at the sound of Misty's last words, bodiless and eerie in the pitch blackness of the dungeons. It was impossible to tell if they were moving, or what they even WERE, as the breathing arubtly halted from the other cell.

"Wh---what IS that?!" Ash yelled, frantically shaking Dexter, but the red PokéDex made no more sound. Frustrated, he slammed it shut, put it into the pocket of his blue jacket, and continued to watch the eyes in horror. 

"Ahhhhhhhh!!!" Misty screamed as she jerked away from Ash and moved to the back of the cell. Her eyes were wide and her whole body was shaking, afraid that the owner of those eyes would lunge and rip the two of them apart without a second thought.

The creature was silent as death. The eyes disappeared for a moment, hidden under whatever lids the monster possessed.

Then, something unexpected took place.

The faint sound of crying could be heard, the quiet flow of tears onto the cold, wet floor. However, it wasn't human; the sobs were in the form of short growls, and as it grit its teeth against apparent emotional turmoil, a meager bit of light reflected off of a pair of impressive one-inch long canines that could have qualified as belonging to a vampire.

"It looks pretty mean.....!" Ash remarked, advancing towards the front of the cell slowly, his sneakers hitting the decrepit floor softly. As he gulped at the sight of the fangs, Misty stopped shaking and took a long listen at the growls. She was not keen on the emotions of big, scary Pokémon, but it was clear that the growls were of sadness, and not of bloodlust. Yet, those fangs, gleaming in the faint glow of sunlight from outside, were obviously not used for making friends. Even so, there was something familiar about the dark creature, the hideousness of which was dulled by it being familiar to her sight.

It stopped crying for a moment, pausing.... almost thoughtful. The red orbs appeared once more, and there was another scraping of scales upon metal, as it seemed to near the iron bars. It then unexpectedly, slowly reached out a hand towards the occupants of the other side.

It was a hideous sight to bear witness to, as yellow light from one of the flickering light bulbs laid its glow upon it. Black scales laid upon it which didn't seem to reflect the light at all and instead absorbed it, and claws that seemed to be made from steel. The arm was muscled as well, lightly, but with tendons that seemed to be made of some kind of material that was _stronger_ than the aforementioned metal.

However, the most astonishing piece of this puzzle was that the arm itself was SHAKING. Not in anger nor in hunger.... but terror, trauma, loneliness...

However, the ever-shrieking Misty was completely REVOLTED by the sight, and she screamed for a drawn out period of time. "GET IT AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If she had known who it was she would be kicking herself in the head. However, that faint familiarity had dwindled... and died.

The hand suddenly recoiled back into the darkness, and there was another period of silence.... and those short growls which seemed to be sobs. Suddenly...... there was a faint cry of realization, and the distinct sound of clothing being ripped through by claws soon after.

Another whimper, this one of a last hope, an almost-defeated determination. The hateful claws were outstretched once more, but this time, the hand was in the form of a fist, clenched around something or other.

"Come on, Misty! It's not going to eat us!" Ash said in forced cheerfulness, trying to reassure his friend.

"How can you be so sure of that, Ash?!!" Misty screamed, her eyes shut tight. She was so frightened of that creature--the MONSTER, no doubt of that, and it struck more terror into her than any Ariados or Beedrill ever would. Ash liked all types of Pokémon, and though he could be closed-minded to certain things, and though he was scared half to death , a Pokémon was still a Pokémon. Funny...it had Brock's hair.

"Hey, look, Misty! It looks like Brock!"

When Ash said that, the water-type trainer froze, and she inched her way to the front of the cell, and that unsavory, abnormal hand. Her eyes began to fill with tears, and she leaned her orange-haired head against the bars, sobbing piteously, realizing that the creature......was indeed their older friend. 

"It" recoiled its hand once more, suddenly realizing that he had just created more of a burden to their minds..... He tried to make them understand... but no, it was impossible. It was settling in slowly..... these new senses.... these feelings.... he clutched the small piece of fabric that was in his claws to his bare chest, closing his eyes for a moment. It was a piece torn from the bottom of his brown pants, which were now tattered and beyond recognition. But maybe.... he could somehow communicate something to them if they realized.... that.... that it was him. Brock. He WAS Brock.... right?

Before he could dig up any other doubts about his being, he leaned forward once again and laid the cloth in front of Ash and Misty, bringing his monstrous arm back once more. Suddenly, he felt as if he _didn't_ want them to know, and skittered backwards against the farthest wall. This body.... these quick reactions, the strange muscles... Were so alien to him, as he attempted to move. Every muscle he used, every tendon he pulled... seemed to be agony to his mind, his heart. He felt wrong.... so _wrong...._ WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG---

"WRRRROOOARRGHH!!!!!" he suddenly roared, the sound only half-sounding like the word that he was trying to yell, to scream into the face of God himself. Why did he feel so WRONG?!??!

At the sound of the tremendous roar the two trainers jumped backwards, Ash crashing into the stone wall with Misty following, landing in a heap. Then they both inched foward on their hands and knees, the girl grabbing between the rusting bars for the fabric that the creature had laid down in front of them, and pulling it backwards haltingly, not wanting to completely confirm that the fabric was part of Brock's clothing, or what was left of it. However, she HAD to know for sure, and held the brown material up to her quaking eyes, and she nodded, whispering like a timid stream of wind: 

"It's Brock."

Ash's eyes narrowed and he stood up with some difficulty, and shook his fist at the upper floors. 

"We're 'gonna make you _sorry_ for what you did to our friend!!"

However, no one was listening, and no one probably cared to listen, because those in these dungeons were many times, if not always, insignificant to Team Rocket. 

"It's no use, Ash," came a voice, a hoarse growl that, with much effort, was being forced to grind words onto the rough vocal cords of an inhuman throat. "They aren't listening.... they won't ever listen."

"Brock!!!" Ash cried in surprise, leaning down towards those two scarlet eyes that glowed amidst the prevailing darkness. A few moments of silence followed before Misty broke in.

"My God......what did they DO to you?!"

That was perhaps the most unnecessary question she had ever asked, but she was frightened, and fear caused her to do irrational things.

The eyes narrowed, and the sound of an exceedingly powerful fist slamming against stone was heard. However, it was the stone that could be head breaking. Not the hand.

"Isn't it obvious?" After a moment of silence, he suddenly gave out a yell, that escalated into a roar. "ISN'T IT OBVIOURRRGHHH?!??!?"

The roar was frightening, but now that Misty knew that the creature was Brock, she found some relief in it. She nodded, finding herself without words, her face full of tears, and slowly reached her hand out to grab that claws that so mercilessly but rightfully wrecked the stone, in an attempt to comfort him.....somehow....if that was even possible. Ash said nothing, still belieivng that _he_ was the cause of all this. How little he knew that this would have happened with or without his blunder.

The creature looked back towards Misty, and his eyes suddenly narrowed, bitterly.

"You didn't seem so eager to do that before."

He was angry at the world for obvious reasons, and his turbulent emotions, which had not yet come to face this new problem, this new LIFE, seemed to be overtaken by the chemicals that were coursing through his system. The combination was causing something that Ivy had PLANNED, and Brock wasn't disappointing. He was lashing out at everything, his hatred building.... Ivy had taken him to the pool of inhumanity and shoved him in, and because no one had been there to stop Ivy from doing it, he was refusing to let anyone try to pull him out as he sank.

Of course, Ash and Misty _had_ been there.... but Brock didn't care. His apathy at this moment was too great, as he tried to ignore the life-changing event that had just took place. He couldn't... he couldn't even _remember_ the details of the Change... Too painful. Too heartbreaking.

There would never be a less inopportune time for the Rocket leader to descend to the dungeons. Misty gasped as she heard the steps, and shoved her guilt at reacting negatively to Brock into the back of her mind. Ash looked confused, and stared blankly at the hideous monstrosity that was Brock, hardly noticing Team Rocket's Boss, (who, unbeknownst to him and Misty, doubled as the Viridian City Gym leader).

The large man strode confidently down the musty corridor, whatever remorse he had pertaining to this venture having dissipated entirely. He glanced briefly at the two trainers, though his view of Ash was obscured by Misty. He was--unfortunately for our heroes--acting as normally as ever, with that twisted grin once again on his creased face. The man looked down at the creature in the cell with a long, hard, condescending gaze, that practically laughed, "I'm better than you because I am human."

Giovanni thought about this for a moment, smiled, and after a small chuckle, produced a PokéBall and looked threateningly at the tormented Pokémon. 

Brock's crimson eyes widened. He had been unconscious the first time that he had been in one of those.... loathesome.... objects, and his mind was fuzzy about the recent occurrence. However, one thing was certain; it had not been pleasant.

Giovanni held out the virtual cage that was different from the normal type of PokéBall: these ones were marked with the intimidating R, and at this moment, was aimed towards Brock. 

"Gemini..... return."

"Gemini", as he had been dubbed by his "superiors", shook his head, his bloodshot eyes widening as he backed up against the wall.... but to no avail.

A yell leaped from his inhuman throat as he practically disintegrated, transformed into that scarlet light for a moment, and with a sudden cry, disappeared.

"BROCK!!" Misty cried, running up to the bars and trying to shake the ancient, rusty metal in her deep frustration. The man in the orange-red suit turned around, grinned maliciously at Misty for a long moment, and shoved the PokéBall into his pocket, walking back up the steps with the whitish figure of a feline following.

Misty was frozen in shock at the sight of that grin. So cold.... so filled with malice, so incredibly and utterly _evil....._the man who posessed that grin could never be otherwise.

She closed her eyes and screamed.

"BROOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

*~*~*

**DMB: We'll leave you hanging in suspense. Again, do not be afraid of fluffy enigmas; it is perfectly safe to leave a wonderful REVIEW! Only one for the first chapter. Oh, well. We love ya, Master Garo Something! ~.^**

**B9T: But even though the reviews might be scarce, we'll keep on writing! ^_-**

**DMB: Wait.... FOUR now?!? Ah, great!! Um.... THANKS TO ALL OF YOU! ~.^**

**TO BE CONTINUED.....**


	3. In the

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

_Old Friend,  
It is time to regain our Geminis.  
Edward_

--Letter Addressed to "S. O. Demoni". Archived by Pallet Town Police Department

*~*~*

**Chapter 3: **In the "Company" of Strangers

*~*~*

The threatening thunderheads were crying mournfully, a heavy downpour hammering against the window nearest to the door of the Team Rocket Headquarters. The engulfing darkness was overbearing outside, but inside, all manner of light illuminated the hallway where Giovanni had stopped walking. He laughed quietly to himself, not the kind of inane outburst that is drived from lightheartedness, but the very opposite. This sinsister laugh continued as he clenched the PokéBall in his hands, activating the mechanism that opened it, releasing... HIS Pokémon. Now seeing it clearly in the light, Persian widened its crimson eyes, and stared at it in curiosity, being too pampered and naïve to know true fear. His owner smirked for an entirely different reason, anxious to see the _thing_ in plain light, where it could not hide in the darkness or the dim lights of Ivy's laboratory. Yet, this plain light was aggravating his malicious eyes......

The Pokémon indeed appeared, though instead of standing upwards, it appeared sprawled out on the floor, as if unconscious after a long, arduous battle. It had been fighting for freedom from the PokéBall, but those customized by Giovanni were specially made to tolerate that kind of abuse and had easily won over the rebel.

His face adorned with a malicious smile, the leader of Team Rocket strode foward, looking down at his exhausted, drained,.....property. It was unnerving to see how he viewed Pokémon as opposed to humans. To him, Pokémon were only at their fullest potential when they were used for destruction and chaos--at the whim of a _human._

Giovanni stood, a few feet away as the "property" suddenly groaned in its bestial voice, and rolled over onto its back, rubbing a clawed hand over its eyes and forehead.

"Misty, I had the _wierdest_ dream...." He mumbled, slurring his words together.

"Misty?" Instead of the gentle voice of the aforementioned, there was the deeper, haughty, overconfident tone of the one who had ordered this to be done: it was finding the wolf when searching for the sheep. "Who might that be?" he asked tauntingly. "One of your little companions?" How Giovanni acted now was in stark contrast to the way he had behaved around Ivy. Perhaps she was the only one who limited his authority. Everywhere else, with the exception of the big house, he held total and absolute power.

Brock opened his eyes blearily, those crimson, blood-red orbs in which no pupils dwelled, and blinked upwards. He suddenly and without warning bared his fangs as he jumped upwards to his feet. His fists clenched and unclenched at his distorted sides, his grey, almost metallic claws stretching outwards and inwards, and he snarled, stretching his neck upwards in the classic sign of predatory Pokémon aggression.

"YOUUGGHHH........" Came the growl, that reverberated in his slightly-enlarged chest and seemed to echo about the corridor's walls. While he reacted to Ivy with pure terror, it seemed as if he rathered to face _this_ one with anger.

"Yes. Me," the man answered smugly, not flinching at the ferocity of Ivy's "creation". It was a Pokémon, after all: it was SUPPOSED to be ferocious, deadly, lethal. It had to be to SURVIVE. A docile, placid Pokémon had no chance against the fury of a merciless killer. Yet, he could not have it rebelling. The Pokémon's strength surpassed that of any normal one, and he knew it could easily destroy him--or so Ivy had warned him.

"What do _you_ want?" Brock began to circle the other, his voice a continuous growl. The instincts infused by Ivy were quickly taking control of his actions, and he couldn't help, didn't even _realize_ the fact that his demeanor resembled that of an aggressive male Nidoking's.

"I want you to submit to my authority," the other answered coldly, keeping his eyes on Brock but not moving away nor towards the ferocious beast. He knew that the creature would definitely not want to do this, after all the undeserved hell it had been through.

"SubMIT?!? Au_THORITY?!?!" _Brock began to laugh sardonically, a cold sound quite unlike his usual self that could burn one's ears rather easily. Then again.... he _wasn't _his usual self. "I'd rather just kill you."

Ivy's chemicals were taking their full effect on the susceptible rock trainer, causing his tortured thoughts to swing towards violence and bloodshed. It was obvious that he was ready to rip anyone's throat out, be they friend or foe, as his chest heaved in anger and his tail lashed behind him, whipping through the air like an angered serpent.

A tail....

_Wait.... _Brock suddenly froze, horrified. _I have..... a..... TAIL?!? _He whirled around, grabbing for the long, wiry limb, and after a few futile tries, managed to catch it, holding it tightly in his claws the way that a dog might chase its own tail. THIS brought him back to his senses, as he stared at this.... THING. So strange to him, so.....

He rubbed his scale-covered hands against it, slowly, and then brought his clawed finger up from the middle and ran it down to the tip, where a thin, razor-sharp blade was stationed.

So.... _inhuman._

Brock closed his eyes, his shoulders shuddering at intervals as the sobs began to rack his throat once more. Had his instincts been in control, letting his guard down and showing weakness to the enemy would have been intolerable. However, this was _not_ the Pokémon. This was.... Brock.

This action caused Giovanni to doubt the nature of the Pokémon once more, as he watched the creature choke on a poorly-hidden sob and rest its head against the wall, as if weak from the turmoil it had gone through. Crying was not something a monster would do, at least that is what he assumed. Was it possible that it retained some humanity, and perhaps was human all along? He could not tell, but again the lust for power discarded all morality, be it for Pokémon... _or_ humans.

"What is your decision---" He paused for a moment, wondering why Ivy had given the Pokémon the name she had. "---Gemini?"

Some more chokes. More tears. The creature had its hands up against the wall as it leaned against it, its back turned towards the reason for all of his pain.

"Why......" Brock started off in a whisper, eyes still closed as he grit his fanged teeth. "Why would I even CONSIDER joining _you?!_ I don't even know who you are, or why you... why you DID THIS TO ME......"

Again a roar was heard, surpassing the volume and the wildness of any Pokémon cry ever heard before.

"I can answer your questions. I am the leader of Team Rocket, and I did not do this to you. Ivy did. I merely ordered it done," Giovanni said calmly.

"Ordered...... WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?!??!" The victim cried, whirling around towards the tormentor once more. His eyes were ablaze in anger, hate, shame, even as tears fell from them. "I.... I'm a..... monster....." After a moment of thinking, he realized that he was only confirming Ivy's hope. "NO!!! I.... I......_ look_ like a monster. But... I'm still.... I'm still me....."

"You are incorrect. You are indeed a monster, and you will soon be a weapon. A weapon to wreak havoc and spread terror across the Pokémon world." It was in saying that that his purposes were revealed. However, it was a habit of the man to always become relaxed, sedated even, when speaking about immense power that was in his reach. This mentality was reflected in his actions, as brought a hand down upon Persian's head and began to stroke the puzzled feline gently.

Brock gave out a sarcastic laugh. "Weapon? So I'm a weapon instead of a monster, now? That makes me feel a whole _lot _better."

"It does not matter if it makes you feel better. You are a monster even as you are a weapon: you should not FEEL anything," Giovanni said slowly, deliberately, as Persian began to purr softly. The cat could care less about the dire circumstances surrounding him, as long as attention was being paid to him.

"And what if I DO?" Brock yelled back. "I can _talk_, can't I? I'm not _meant_ to talk--Ivy planned that, I know--but I still CAN, if I really try..... What, do you think that I'll just bow down to you and call you 'Master' or something?!? I could probably just run out of here and tell the _police_ exactly where this hideout--or---or---WHATEVER this place is-----is!!!"

The creature was losing its confidence. Giovanni grinned. "The police? But they would not listen to a hideous creature such as yourself. They would probably arrest you on charges of destroying the peace before you had a chance to explain anything. Therefore, if you even _can_ employ speech by then--which I doubt--it would be unwise for you to speak to the authorities."

"I don't believe," Giovanni paused, lowering his eyes down towards the purring Persian, "..that civil rights are entitled to a monster."

The grin widened.

That name... that hateful name.....

_Monster, Brock._

_You're a monster._

_Monster...._

_MONSTER......_

"I'm---I'm NOT A MONSTOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHH!!!!!!!!!" Brock let out all his anger at one moment, and his voice, out of control, out of grasp, twisted and contorted into a tremendous roar of bitter irony. Brock halted arubtly, choking, and gasping, and gagging on his words as he looked downwards in shock and brought a hand to his throat.

That voice again.

"You certainly sound like one."

Giovanni laughed again, quietly as his usual manner of laughing was. He then let his Persian be and began to walk foward, every step conflicting with a crash of furious thunder outside, and he walked in a circle around the Pokémon, drinking in every detail. Yes... Ivy had been right. The power..... the pure ferociousness..... no discipline, but that could be.... embedded into the creature later.....

The "monster" stared downwards, too exhausted to cry, to growl, to do anything. He felt like a carcass as it was. The carcass of a being whom had once been Brock, as he stared downwards at the tiled floor as he was circled, feeling Giovanni's eyes piercing through his back, his flesh, his soul.

The leader of Team Rocket was indeed a wolf, ready to pounce upon its helpless lamb. A lamb... trapped in the lion's fur.

"You were correct in assuming that I did not think you would submit, then..." Giovanni's sick, evil grin widened even further, and there was something slightly, very slightly predatory about the teeth as he flashed them. He pointed to the door. "Go. Go see how humans react to you now that you are a monster."

Silence. Of desolation? Defiance? Defeat? Giovanni didn't care; he had already won in his own eyes, and he concluded with a triumphant laugh: "You will eventually find a solitary refuge." 

More silence.

"And.... what would that be?" Came the growl. It seemed more inhuman than ever, as Brock grasped at the words, barely holding on to them as he shoved them out of his mouth.

"Here."

Giovanni brought a fist upwards and clenched it.

The silence lasted longer this time.

"You're wrong." Brock shook his monstrous head slowly, raising his saddened eyes towards the other, the HATEFUL, LOATHSOME, other. "I'm human...."

"We shall see."

Another pause. Years flew within the staggering seconds.

"No," Brock slowly raised himself to his full height... strangely.... smoothly. Majestically. "I don't _need_ to see.

"I _know."_

Giovanni's smile warped into a deadly, threatening grin.

"You _KNOW_? We will see how you think of yourself after you visit your hometown. I am sure you will not be able to disagree with the many that say otherwise."

He pressed the button on the teleporter--a gadget that Ivy had given him to use in the case of an "emotional emergency", aiming it towards the helpless mutant. 

"Hometown-----WAITRRRGHH!!!!!" Brock suddenly roared as he felt a huge pain crack through his skull, as if tearing through his mind and draining it of all energy. "AAAAARRRGHHH!!!!!" He gave out a pained scream as the hallway's lights suddenly dimmed and he was surrounded by a whirling wind of pure darkness.

"NO!!! PLEASE!!!! DON'T!!!! I'LL------AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

As quickly as it had began, it ended, and when the lights finally regained their brightness, no mutation could be seen in the hallway. It was as empty as before.

"Excellent," Giovanni declared, looking over the control in approval before shoving it in his pocket and gladly leaving the now-deserted corridor: the light was without mercy.

*~*~*

A young man of nineteen or twenty drummed his fingers atop the polished surface of his smooth office desk. There was a nasty scowl on his face which only worsened as he glanced down at his watch. 

5:34.

Dammit. He growled slightly as the drumming of his fingers quickened, in tune with the soft rain that pitter-pattered upon his office windows. She had said she would call back at _five._

"Hah," he muttered to himself as he brought a glass of white wine to his lips. "That's the unreliability of outside help for you."

The overweight, brown-bearded, beady-eyed superior of an elite force of law enforcers, better known for being deadly kidnappers and assasins, moved his enormous bulk through the doorway. His face was washed with crimson, and he was very upset, and at the same time, was heavily amused, by something or other.

"President Shin-Ra, a monster called a Chansey was spotted on the 13th floor! It's holding a big bomb in hands! You'd better see it quick--gyahaaa!!"   
  
"Speaking of unreliability...." Rufus murmured to himself, arching an eyebrow as he glared over his wine condescendingly. "A 'Chansey'.... you say?"

"Yes, sir. It's giant and pink and it's holding a bomb! The Turks attacked it with everything---gyahaa, but it's still standing, holding that bomb! Gyahaaaa!!"

There was one very distinguishing characteristic that separated Heidegger from all living souls: his laugh, dubbed "stupid horse laugh" by his superior.

Rufus' eyes narrowed even further, as he let out an exasperated sigh.

"It's not a _bomb_, you dolt," he yawned, taking another sip of wine. "It's an egg. Have Tseng and the others escort it off the premises."

"Yes, sir!"

The bulging man turned to leave, and he eased his way out of the doorway, almost getting his girth stuck in it as he walked. He threw up his head to laugh again, giant belly vibrating as he shouted, "An EGG? Gyahahaaa! They'll escort the egg--gyaha!"

Rufus sighed, putting down his beverage and laying a hand on the phone in front of him. After a moment of reflection, he snatched it upwards and brought it to his ear.

"Yes..... get me Hojo, would you?"

The operator, who was occupied with other calls that came fast and furious, answered as sweetly as possible, though burdened with the number of rings coming into her computer: "I'm having difficulty finding him..please hold on a second, sir."

Rufus' eyes narrowed, and he began to drum his fingers once more. _Why do I feel as if this has happened before.....?_

After a few minutes of being on hold, Rufus curled his lip, pulling the phone away from his ear and glaring down at it disdainfully as he clicked the "end" button. He then brought up a hand, wriggling his fingers over the keypad reluctantly before he punched down the numbers "007".

He brought the phone to his ear once more. "Reno...? Yes. Could you _please_ escort the good Professor up to my office? ...........Hojo, Reno. Gast is dead. He's _been_ dead since before--- Wait, Hojo? Yes, he's in his laboratory... Let Tseng escort the Chansey. It isn't a problem, I assure you. _Thank_ you."

With another sigh of exasperation, Rufus ended the call. It seemed as if he would have a parade of unreliable employees, soon enough....

He took another sip of his wine. He needed it.

*~*~*

Reno walked away from the other Turks and up towards one of the infamous laboratories of Shin-Ra Inc. It was said that many horrifying things happened there, and it didn't particularly excite him, anyway. Yet, orders were orders, and if they were coming directly from Rufus, it must have been important. He rode up the elevator, impatient for it to open and let him reach the floor where the laboratory was. In Vermillion City, it was not the 67th, but in the lower 30s. Buildings were smaller in Vermillion than in Midgar. And there were no slums to speak of. It was an overall nice place, but usually there was nothing to do. Thus; even though going to the laboratory to pick up the old geezer that was the head of Shin-Ra's science department was not his idea of fun, it was better than doing nothing. After all, there were few bars and taverns in this city, which upset him greatly.

The elevator door opened, and the Turk walked out, heading towrads the laboratory with his favorite weapon balanced on his shoulder. Maybe he could have slugged Hojo with it, but that wouldn't sit well with Rufus. A few more steps took him to the door of the laboratory, and he knocked at least twenty times in rapid succession. When there was no answer, he knocked several more times, not being the most sophistocated employee to grace the Shin-Ra offices.

However, his knocking soon halted a feral cry of pain was heard behind the door that led to the ominous--and infamous--Shin-Ra labs of Vermilion City. Whatever it was, however, was suddenly silenced as a machine of some sort whirred and there was a flash of electricity.

There was then the sound of a low, "Damn," and then the slow sound of stooping footsteps, echoing upon the tiled floor.

"Who is it?"

There didn't seem to be anyone else in the laboratory, as it was the scientists' day off, but if anyone knew Hojo, they would have realized that the man's pale skin betrayed the fact that he barely ever left the building.

"'Bout time you got here!" Reno's voice was clearly disrespectful of the scientist's age and position, but his vibrant green eyes betrayed his uneasiness at seeing Hojo in person. It was for susbstantial reason: Within Elena's unending flow of gossip, he had heard horrid tales of a Turk that had encountered Hojo and was never seen again. Reno was young and didn't want to show weakness to anything, but the veil of defiance was that he had sewn was too thin to hide his fear--_especially_ from one such as _Hojo...._

Hojo's eyes narrowed, and he habitually pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a forefinger, his large forehead creasing as he looked up at the Turk. Hojo wasn't a large man--he as tall as a normal man, but with the way that he stooped whenever he stood, his height seemed to slightly diminish, giving him a short, thin air.

" 'Bout time', you say? I haven't left the lab all day."

There was an expression of disappointment about his face, as he turned his head back towards one of the cages at the far end of the room. "I was observing a specimen's reaction to a customized poison--it was designed to be immune. It didn't.... 'live' up to my expectations.... hah-haaa......" The seemingly eccentric scientist chuckled slightly at his joke as he moved away from the door, as if forgetting that Reno was even there. _This_ wasn't comforting to the Turk at all, as it betrayed the fact that Hojo talked to himself, and people who _usually_ talked to themselves were _usually_ considered a bit touched in the head. Reno, in fact, thought that the old scientist was much more than touched in the head: he was probably a damn psychopath who should've been sent to the nuthouse at age two. That gave him more reason to fear him, but his youth prevented him from showing it.

"The Prez wants ya upstairs. I'm supposed to take you up there," Reno told the hunched man, his voice betraying some discomfort.

"Oh?" Hojo turned his head back towards the Turk, looking slightly annoyed. "Why didn't he call me, then?" The black eyes now narrowed in a strange sort of amusement. "Ah... but he did, didn't he?"

Before Reno could even respond, he turned away once more. "I must have not heard the rings over the squealing of 298B.....So loud, these subjects," Hojo murmured, scratching his chin. "A pity we can't administer a Silence attack...."

Again, he turned back towards Reno before the Turk could say anything, this time an eyebrow arching. "So, he's called for me, then? And he doesn't trust me to come up by myself?" A grin flitted across his face. "Very well. Lead the way."

Since Reno wasn't granted any time in which to say anything, he figured it would be pointless if he said something now, and quietly led the scientist up to the next-to-highest story in the building, staying behind him in case the short, old man tried to jump him. It was not long before they reached the elevator, and it began its brief trip from the current floor up to their destination. 

35.

36.

37.

38. 

The silver elevator doors opened, and he walked out coolly behind the black-haired man, traversing the hallway. The structure of some parts of the building differed greatly from the original in Midgar: thus, it was not a perfect copy of the famed HQ. However, the decorative tastes remained fairly the same, one could note when walking through the upper floors.

This architectural wonder was situated in the middle of Vermillion City, making it a centerpiece in the quiet seaport. It was not only a spectacle, but a steadily growing power. And more power meant more money. As it was, Reno was making a hefty amount of money: definitely more than the SOLDIERS, for doing next to nothing. Vermillion already had a police force, and there was nothing to kill and no one to kidnap. The day was ending quietly, with him dragging an old man up to see the president.

He knocked on the door.

A loud voice came from the inside of the office as Hojo and his "escort" drew near. "What is it, _now?!?" _

Rufus didn't seem to be in a good mood. But then again, when did he ever? 

Hojo pursed his lips and turned towards Reno, making a mock bow. "I'm only the escorteé. I'll let you take the beating." 

"Thanks for nothin'," Reno answered at the other's false show of politeness, and answered semi-respectfully, "He's here! Ya want him to come in?" 

There was a pause, and then the sound of a creaking office chair and another disgruntled growl. "What do you think?" 

Hojo smirked at Reno, bowing once again. "You open the cage. I'll calm the tiger."

Strangely cryptic, those words.... what were they implying? However, they were too abstract for his Reno's to decipher. He muttered, "Whatever,", and swung the finely-crafted double doors open, letting him in. 

Hojo's smile continued to be exhibited as he passed the miffed Reno and walked towards the prestigious president of the monopoly known as Shin-Ra Electric Company.

"Mr. President.... So nice to see you."

Rufus looked a bit stranger than usual. First and foremost, he was sweating slightly. Secondly, there was an empty bottle of wine in front of him. Thirdly, his hair looked a bit disheveled, and if anyone knew Rufus, they knew that having two hairdressers told you something about a man.

"....Yes, Professor Hojo," was his response. His blue eyes had the look of a wind upon the arctic ice. "Now, I would like to ask you about this 'Ivy' character....."

"Belina?" Hojo's smile suddenly dimmed. "She hasn't called?" 

Rufus' eyes now looked to be the color of a blizzard, as he stood to his feet. "I thought that my communication with her was strictly confidential."

"Oh... and I thought _I _was the one who suggested her," Hojo's smiled brightened once more until it fell again. "But she hasn't called?"

"No."

"Hmmmm," Hojo began to pace about the large office, scratching his chin. "That is not a good sign.... No, not at all."

The icy eyes narrowed. "You think she double-crossed _us_ then?" _I wouldn't doubt it._He added mentally. After all, there had been no _choice_ as to recruiting her or not.....

"It's possible," was Hojo's ambiguous response. "However, she's probably.... doing additional tests." Hojo shook his head. "Or letting Zero-X revel in its ignorance until she carries out her vengeance...."

"Vengeance?" The blizzards disappeared as Rufus blinked. "You mean... she's doing this because of a personal grudge?"

"You could say that...." murmured Hojo. "However, she'll carry the original plans out. What I would be more worried about.... is the fact that she'll be caught up in it. She usually is."

Rufus thought about that for a moment, and then brought a hand to his hair, rubbing through it rather obliviously. "She _forced_ me to hire her......." His eyes narrowed. "I don't believe _that_ is a very good sign, Hojo."

The conversation between the two men created an escalating tension that was felt in the elaborately furnished room. This accentuated a well-defined wall that separated them, though both were in the same, massive company. One clearly had all of the answers, and the other THOUGHT he did.

_"Forced_ you?" Hojo arched an eyebrow in amusement. "And however did she manage to do _that?"_

"Simple," Rufus clenched his teeth. "She threatened me.... gave me a toxin.... I was forced to sign her up."

Hojo closed his eyes, giving out a sigh of hopelessness. "It was a rhetorical question, Mr. President, but yes, hiring her is a certain risk in itself...."

"HIRING?!??" Rufus' eyes began to blaze once more as he slammed his gloved fist down on the table. "I wasn't even _planning_ to hire her, once I realized that she had been RECOMMENDED BY _YOU."_

The sudden slam of the exquisitely-made doors slammed as they were thrust open, and a blonde-haired woman appeared in the doorway, storming in with much abruptness. She dressed very liberally for a stuffy Shin-Ra executive, but stranger things could happen. Her delicate, sensitive flesh was only covered by a ruby dress that seemed to fail to conceal anything. The scantily-clad woman waltzed right in, her hips swinging rhythmically: it seemed as if being the Weapons Department Manager wasn't her ONLY job. Scarlet glared straight at Rufus and Hojo. She was not the president, but sometimes she didn't hesitate to act like it.

"What's all this racket, boys?! I'm trying to orchestrate something, here!"

Hojo's lip curled slightly as Scarlet, (or "the blonde horror", as he called her behind her back), came walking in. Rufus seemed to be worked up over Hojo's calm responses, and just stood there, glaring at Scarlet in a rather predatory manner.

"Racket?" Hojo echoed, taking off his glasses and looking down at them as he rubbed them clean on his labcoat. "I would hardly call it that. More like a....." He then brought the glasses up to the faint light that came through the storm clouds behind the office windows, narrowing his eyes in scrutiny at them. Thunder suddenly boomed, in chorus with a crack of lightning that ripped open the sky, and Rufus gave out an uncharacteric yelp, tripping backwards onto the floor.

"Ah." Hojo put on the glasses once more, and turned his eyes towards the hidden spot behind the desk where Rufus must have fallen. "Thunder. Our mystery is solved."

"Mystery?! What mystery?! What's so mysterious about that?!" Scarlet demanded in a shrill screech, in the process making more of a "racket" than the two men.

Rufus staggered upwards, putting his hands on the back of the desk for support as Hojo responded dryly. "Perhaps the mystery of where Science Department funds are going and why upper-class citizens are suddenly attending more balls hosted by you."

"What does thunder have to do with something like that?!" Scarlet screamed in aggravation, her face shading the hue of her name. 

"The only mystery......." Rufus suddenly interjected, breathing hard from the recent fall as he leaned forward over his desk, and glaring with those unique blue eyes that were so bright even without mako-infusion, ".....that I can see here.... is WHY...... MY EXECUTIVES....... SEEM TO BICKER SO MUCH!!!!!!"

"Simple," Hojo said calmly, looking towards the steaming tycoon. "You are lacking in observation skills. Had you been paying attention to your employees, you would have noticed that none of us got along from the start."

"The old shrivelled prune's right!" Scarlet seconded, crossing her arms femininely, and shooting a sidelong glare at Hojo.

"Very good, Scarlet. However... you seem to be lacking observation skills as well, seeing that I am a homo sapien, and not a.... prune, as you describe me. And about cooperation....? We all have our differences--except, of course....." He continued, his black eyes gleaming as they moved towards Scarlet. "For Heidegger and Scarlet here, whom, if you may pardon me, seem to forge more deals with your money than the worth of the paychecks with which you give them."

Rufus stared in shock as Hojo yawned, waving a hand dismissively as he turned around and resumed his hunched-over stance, his hands coming together behind his back as he walked. "But I must be going..... I still have additional tests to do before I retire for the night. And.... Ivy should be calling shortly, if I estimate her mind's workings correctly....." Additional mutterings faded away as the self-absorbed Professor made his way down the hall.

Rufus then turned to Scarlet, his eyes narrowing. "What is it that he just said?"

"Old "homo space alien" said that Ivy would call." She blinked, looking rather dumbfounded. "Who in God's name is Ivy?!"

"It is none of your concern," the ice-eyes narrowed further. "Perhaps I should rephrase my question... what was it that he said about _paychecks?"_

She pursed her lips, a bit jealous that she was left out of the loop. Regaining her composure, she answered, 

"That Heidegger and I take your money and use it for our ourselves, and that it's worth more than our paychecks. But don't listen to the old liar! His word's worth about as much as one-half gil!" she spat defensively.

"Really," Rufus closed those eyes. "Then why is it that he happened to be the one that..... cured us of our 'ailments' after Diamond Weapon....? And Meteor, of course, but... I was in a coma when AVALANCHE did _that..._ In fact.... isn't he the one that _discovered_ this.... 'Pokémon World'....?"

Scarlet's eyes narrowed, furious that Rufus always had a form of retaliation. "Okay.....maybe he's NOT a liar. But we didn't do anything low with our paychecks....and, what's so good about this "Pokémon World", anyway? There's no way Shin-Ra can make money off of a pathetic little company like Silph!"

"Little to us, but it happens to be the largest institution in these secluded islands," Rufus sat down in his chair, smoothing out his hair. "In fact.... I believe it was the target of a crime lord a few years back....."

"Yeah.....then what's the smallest? Some family-owned ramen restaurant? This is a-----"  
She stopped in mid-sentence. "Crime lord? This puny place has CRIME?" she inquired scoffingly.

"Yes," Rufus leaned forward, grabbing for a file lying atop his desk. He began to page through it. "A surprisingly HUGE one.... Although they prance around in costumes like children at a parade. No large covert operations, it seems... In fact...." He arched an eyebrow. "According to police records--all the officers look alike, I'll _swear...._--only two things are _un_known."

"....And what_ are_ those two things?" Scarlets asked in curiosity, leaning sideways as she placed a hand on her curved hip. She had calmed down sufficiently, her face now its usual complexion.

"The location of their headquarters.... and.... Hmm.... the identity of their leader," Rufus murmured. He then gave a secret smile and looked back up towards Scarlet. "However, _we_ were able to accumulate some information on this mysterious 'Boss'. He's a man, large, estimated to be in his late thirties, and he is known underground as 'Giovanni'. Hm..... Perhaps Ivy has been a good 'investment', after all..."

"Well.... THAT'S a big help." Scarlet frowned at the vague description, but there was little to suspect from such an enigmatic "parade". "I'll inform Heidegger about this.....maybe he'll get off his wide ass and flush them out." 

She turned on her (elevated) heel to leave, stopped at the mention of the "mysterious" Ivy, and finally walked out of the office, her dress sweeping the floor behind her.

"Yes. Giovanni....." Scarlet heard Rufus murmur to himself as he leaned back in his chair. "Whom Ivy seems to also have classified as being named--"

All other words were lost as the doors slammed shut behind her.

*~*~*****

**Brock in PEWTER?! That ain't good!! And SHIN-RA in the POKÉMON WORLD?!? That's even worse!!! Will AVALANCHE make an appearance? Will Ash and Misty ESCAPE? Will Giovanni realize that hiring Ivy was about as intelligent a move as CATCHING A TOGEPI?!? Will Ivy herself continue with her EVIL DEEDS?!? Will **_Tracey_**even make an APPEARANCE??! WILL CID AND BARRET CUSS SO MUCH THAT WE HAVE TO JACK THIS THING UP TO AN "R" RATING?!?**

**If you wanna find out, then tune in the NEXT time we update....**

**THE END OF A REALITY.**

**(Lame, eh? Oh, well. Just** **REVIEW. REEEEEEVIIIIIEEWW!!!!!!!! Or else we will not be gifted with CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE.)**

**TO BE CONTINUED......**


	4. Outcast

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**Note: **There are two "Suzy/Suzies" in Pokémon. One is Brock's little sister. The other is the Pokémon Breeder that gave Brock Vulpix. Now, to clear up any kind of confusion that might come from this common name, Brock's sister will be referred to as "Suzy" and Brock's FORMER love interest will be referred to as "Suzie". See the difference? Thank you.

*~*~*

_The Professor's been acting kind of strange lately.... I mean, I sketch stuff, and I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but don't you think that someone as intelligent and kind as Professor Oak wouldn't normally lock himself in his office and tell me to attend to the Pokémon? I mean, maybe I could understand if he was doing taxes, but he isn't. He's just writing all these letters to all these different scientists..... I don't get it._

_Anyway, on a lighter note, the migraine's been okay this morning. Those pills that Professor Oak gave me really did work!!! I just wonder how it started in the first place.... the Professor says there's nothing wrong with me.... Maybe I just draw too much, and I stress my eyes or something. Yeah, that's 'gotta be it._

_Anyway, he's in his lab, working something or other.... I think I'll surprise him and tidy up the papers he's been organizing.... Yeah! That'd make him happy._

--Excerpt from blank-paper notebook, found in the guest bedroom of the home of Professor Samuel Oak. Writing in permanent marker on front reads: "Diary and Sketchbook of Tracey Sketchit". All entries end here. Archived by the Pallet Police Department.

*~*~*

**Chapter 4: **Outcast

*~*~*

Brock suddenly awoke. He didn't know how or why, when or where, but somehow he was grateful to feel the soft sun on his eyelids, the cool sidewalk at his back, the smell of humans drifting into his---

His eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright, the blood-red orbs darting around. He seemed to be in an alley--with a narrow space above that sunlight filtered down through, and dark walls on both sides, darker even than his scales.

Scales..... He blinked down at his arm for a moment, flexing it slightly. He then continued to stare, at the way the muscles moved, the scales glimmered with their own light, the air rustling through them, which carried a scent that he seemed to know so well....

"Pewter..." He whispered as he looked upwards at the hazy sky. It surrounded and lay above Pewter. It was warm. It was welcoming.

But the inhabitants were not. They were aware of an dangerous presence, and didn't hesitate to show just how unwanted the "newcomer" was.

A woman pushing her baby's carriage down the street suddenly grabbed her baby, left the carriage, and fled as quickly as possible. A group of trainers, that were conversing casually about their Pokémon, screamed, carrying them off with them to escape the imminent danger. A Nurse Joy poked her head out of the Pokémon Center to discover the source of the commotion, and fainted then and there, only to be trampled by a herd of stampeding citizens eager to flee. Their disorderly note was discernible and punctuating: "MONSTER!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The "monster" closed his eyes at those sounds, those horrible sounds that sent waves of panic to his mind and weighed his heart down with heavy dread. He only hoped to God that none of his family had been part of the crowd......

He opened the eyes again, staring at the almost-empty streets.

_Almost_-empty.

"NURSE JOY!!!!" He cried, forgetting _everything_, it seemed, as he leapt towards her and put one of his loathesome hands underneath her head, and the other on her shoulder, shaking her slightly in an effort to wake her. "Are you okay?" His eyes, although monstrous on their own, were filled with worry and concern.

Ah... some things _never_ changed..... Yet, it would have been better if some things HAD. The sound of that primitive, strange voice and those cold, dry scales under her head roused her, and her eyes snapped open, the gruesome sight of the mutated abomination keeping her eyelids suspended. She put a hand to her gaping mouth in complete shock, that turned into absolute horror.  
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Her scream was heard throughout Pewter City, and some of the braver residents took their Rock, Ground, and Fighting Pokémon and came out of hiding, coming to the aid of the resident nurse, ready to attack the demon-like creature with their bodyguards, seeing him as nothing but a threat to be stamped out.

They were just preparing to combat the hideous Pokémon when a shrill blast pierced the air twice, and quieted the rowdy mob, that had surrounded Brock. A lean figure garbed in blue advanced, holding her gun in one hand, and a pair of handcuffs in the other.

"What's going on here?!"

"That----FREAK was 'gonna harm Nurse Joy!!" shouted one of the more vocal trainers in the Pewter Gym. A dozen other similar complaints, characterized by the same harsh, brutal words, saturated the air, contaminated with prejudice and hatred that had come from poor judgement and lack of reasoning, before Jenny asked for quiet. She then turned to the horrifying abomination, her eyes narrowing.

"I'm hearing a lot of grievances against you, whatever-you-are. So I'm going say it once and ONLY once. Get out of here....go back to where you came from!..if you think you belong with us decent folk, you're dead wrong. If you come back, I'm going to arrest you."

"Nurse Joy.... the crowds.... I was trying to help her....."

Brock could only stare in horror at the rioting crowds, ready to attack him with all the force they could muster at a moment's notice. He found himself hanging his head in shame, raising his eyes slightly towards Jenny. Somehow..... _this_ one didn't seem attractive at all.

"But.... but Officer Jenny....." He felt smaller than a mouse as he said this. "This.... IS..... where I came from...."

This Jenny was unlike the others: severe in personality, overly-dedicated in upholding the law, but ignoring compassion in the process. She raised her eyebrows in disbelief, glaring at the presently timid, but in her eyes, no less dangerous, creature.

"This is where YOU come from? I highly doubt that. You aren't NORMAL like the rest of us. But I'll take your word for it....." She seemed to have a change of heart, but it was merely a mockery. "...So if this IS where you're from, then go and see your FAMILY and see if THEY think so, too."

"My..... my family? NO!!!!!" Brock suddenly backed away, falling onto the ground. _No, no!!! What would they say---DO if they saw me like this.... Timmy... Suzy... Cindy...._

"What's the matter? You SCARED that they won't recognize you?"

This Officer Jenny was the farthest away from "nice" that any Kanto law-enforcer could be. She stood over the creature on the ground, placing her hand on her gun in an intimidating fashion.

"Go see them...then get out!"

"I don't need to see them!!! I'm Brock!!! Doesn't anyone remember?!? BROCK---BROCK BRAVESTONE!!!!" He yelled, struggling to his feet. "I know I look...... bad....... but..... I can explain.... somehow....."

There was silence for amoment, and then the mob laughed in one cruel, pitiless guffaw, its dying note echoing in the poor creature's tortured mind. And the voices, that came in quick succession, hit mercilessly, harder than any physical pain Brock had endured thus far.

"Brock? Ya expect us to believe THAT?"

"Go back to the freak show!!"

"Get out!"

"Beat it!"

"Move it!"

"Scram!!!"

"But..... I _am_......" The world seemed to whirl around him in a thundering storm of ridicule and caustic taunts. The tears fell once more--the unending well of tears, as people--who he had once considered to be familiar--friends, even--were suddenly alienated, transforming into hideous judges of humanity in front of his eyes....The eyes that he still hadn't seen, but that he knew something was wrong with.... horribly wrong.......

"Stop it...." He whispered, closing the lids to those orbs. "Please, stop it..... Just stop it....."

There was one Bug Catcher in the mob that had lost many times to Brock while challenging him, and he stepped forward, folding his arms."I knew Brock! And he was no wimp! If you're Brock, you wouldn't be CRYIN' if ya got called names!"

"You don't know...." The supposed imposter shook his head, attempting to wipe the tears away, but only succeeding in scratching the side of his face with his claws as he did so. "You don't know--agh!-- what I've..... been through....."

The mob began to second the obnoxious boy. At first the din was a dull murmur, but it soon expanded into wild, unrestrained yelling.

"Been through?! Looks like you've been through a vat of acid, freak!"

"You're nothin' BUT a freak!"

"Freak!"

"FREAK!"

_"FREAK!!!!"_

One of the people in the judgemental crowd picked up a stone. He chucked it with deadly accuracy at the monster's head. The others followed his lead and began hurling stones, the emotionally defeneseless creature shrinking away from the projectiles, still crying, still sobbing. The merciless rock-throwing would have continued had it not been for a timely interruption.

"STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A loud feminine voice was heard above the raucous din of the mob, and a spiky-haired girl walked up to the monster, that was physically untouched by the stones, but his heart wounded gravely. She looked up at him innocently.

"I'M NOT A------" He stopped in mid-yell as the last rock bounced off his thigh, staring down at the small girl in a mix of horror and disbelief. His eyes widened, and his muscles tensed.

He let out a whisper.

".......Suzy.....?"

He then staggered backwards, stumbling to the rock-covered ground, and when he hit the hard, gravelly road, all he could do was put his hands over his ears as he shook, as he sobbed, as he steeled himself for the most agonizing moment of his pain-filled life.

_Oh, God... she sees me.... she's going to hate me.... everyone will know.... I AM a freak.... freak FREAK FREAK FREAK----_

"Brock?" Suzy broke into his thoughts as she said his name in her maturing voice: some time had passed since they had seen each other.

No answer. Just tears.

However, she didn't _have_ to hear his answer to know that the monster was the brother whom she had depended on for so many things in her early youth. She was the only one there, in that merciless crowd, that was magnanimous---no, a more fitting term would be unconditional love. No matter what he was, how he appeared to be, how completely, horrifyingly, hideous he was, the creature was her brother: family, blood, and kin.

Her squinted eyes were shaking in profound joy, and she kneeled down to hug the demon-like creature, her gentle, innocent smile brightening up her slightly tanned face.

"I missed you."

Brock's blood-red, teary eyes suddenly widened in shock at Suzy's naïvete, as he felt her small arms wrap around his neck in the joy that a girl feels when reuniting with a long-lost brother.

A smile touched his face, and he raised his claws to her hair, rubbing it gently with his knuckles, almost jokingly.

"I missed you too."

Sadly, the moment amongst the clouds of heaven only lasted for a brief while, as it was shattered when Officer Jenny stalked up to the little girl.

"You're HUGGING him? What kind of stupid little kid are you?!"

"Uh..um.....he's my brother, Officer Jenny!" the girl explained with quaking eyes, tears forming as she hugged the creature tighter, who looked up at the Jenny in shock.

"Aw.....how cute...NOT! You show a freak pity, you don't get any pity!"

With that, the cruel policewoman grabbed Suzy by the collar, pulled her away from her brother, held her above the ground, and literally KICKED her out of Pewter City, the poor girl screaming as she disappeared over the horizon.

The sadistic Jenny, who wasn't even WORTHY of the badge, was feeling quite pleased with herself, until suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder--colder than ice and harder than steel as it gripped her.

"You kicked my sister."

"Yeah? So what're you going to do about it, freak? Rip my head off and stick it on an Onix's horn?"

"....You _kicked_ my _sister."_

"Your sister? A freak's sister! She's just as abnormal and out-of-place as you!"

Before Jenny knew it, she was being whirled around and slammed upon the brick wall of a nearby building with astounding force, as a loud roar punctuated the air and held still as a fist was positioned in front of his face.

"I SWEAR, I'LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND--"

The mob was gradually closing in in anger at what happened to Jenny, who was unconscious on the ground, bleeding profusely from the flesh that had impacted with the bricks. They had their Pokémon at the ready, and some were about to use their bare fists, so over taken with rage and hatred, that hardly had any grounds. But these were unkind humans, some of the least forgiving and quick to jump to their own fallible conclusions. Their disorganized circle advanced, a large mess of shadows being cast down on the misunderstood Pokémon, but before the blood could fly, a burly man wearing a winter hat came upon the foray, fought his way through, grabbed the creature's arm, and escaped before anyone realized what had taken place. The tanned human did not look at the creature, but kept jogging foward until they reached a small, one-story house, and took him inside, locking the door. He then took off his hat, staring at the monster silently.

"You were pretty lucky I was there to save your bacon."

Brock's eyes narrowed, and he gave out a dangerous growl. "Who are---"

He stared, his jaw dropping, which margled his next word.

"FLINT!!!!!"

It might have been disconcerting to know that he had never referred to the man as being "Dad" during the last five or so years of his life. "My father", maybe, but _never_ "Dad".

"But---how-----why----?!??!" His eyes continued to widen.

"All they want to see is some blood. I didn't want to stand around and see it happen."  
That was slightly hypocritical of him, as he was not the type of man who particularly cared a great deal...about anyone.

The jaw regained its normal posture, as the eyes narrowed in a mix of relief and disappointment. "So.... you were just being a good samaritan, then? You _didn't_ recognize me?"

"No, I recognized you."

He sat down on the floor, sewing together a pair of pants, watching the thread and his embittered son at the same time. "Who wouldn't, the way you were yelling like that. Why'd you come back, anyway? I thought you were out to be a breeder."

All he could do was stare, the jaw dropping once more, revealing the fangs and a newly-discovered forked tongue.

"I guess something happened." Flint treated this very indifferently, as if he knew more about it than his son did. He didn't really seem surprised at the inhuman features, and continued to sew. As he raised his head to speak, he pricked his finger on the needle. A faint drop of blood leaked out, that was the normal crimson.

"Where're you going now?"

"Oh, well, we're just going to keep traveling on Route 1, you know, just stopped here after Viridian forest...." Brock sighed out in mock-indifference, until he paused and suddenly whirled upon his estranged father, yelling like a banshee. "'HAPPENED??!?' 'SOMETHING'?!?!? DAMMIT, MAN, DO YOU EVEN _CARE_ ABOUT _ANYTHING?!?!?"_

"Does it look like I do?" answered the burly man, finishing the pair of pants. He put his thread and needle down, and stood up. "Brock, go home."

There was no doubt as to what he could have meant. As far as Brock was concerned, PEWTER was home. But Flint was saying it was elsewhere. Not there, in Pewter. Far away. He was somehow saying what the mob was saying, and though the message was subtle, it was ringing loud and clear.

Brock stared at his father once more, but now that he was face-to-face with the man who had abandoned his family, he found enough hatred to curl his lip.

"Home? Last time I checked, THIS was my home." He paused, and added on a bitter note, "_Dad."_

"Not anymore. You want some place to call home, find a circus or a freak show or maybe a dumpster in an alley." He turned around, walking slowly to the kitchen sink, and then faced the creature that was his son again, as if he had forgotten to say one more thing. "You go on back to a LAB. I'm sure they'll welcome you there."

The tone of that indifference rang as clearly as a bell, and then there was silence.

"......So, you'd sacrifice your own SON for the sake of keeping the city QUIET?!?!?" Brock shrieked in disbelief. "Like the way you ABANDONED your... your FAMILY!??! And MOM!??!? And the KIDS?!?!? And... and ME?!??"

"Yeah," he answered with sickening indifference, and seeing that the creature wasn't leaving, he strode over to the old door and opened it, pointing outside. There was no need for words at that point.

Brock's eyes narrowed, and he ignored Flint, shoving past the man and walking towards what had once been his bedroom.

"You can't order me to leave my own _house."_

He then opened the door to the room, slammed it, and flopped down into the bed.

"Maybe I can't. But you can't stay. The kids..they'll be coming home. What would they SAY? They wouldn't want you around any more than I do."  
He stood in front of the door to Brock's room, his low tone coming across muffled, yet clear as an unpolluted river.

"Suzy.... she.... she knew it was me...." His tone was less confident now, as he rolled over, some of the spikes on his shoulders tearing through the sheets, causing him to fall upon the floor. "Uuungh...."

"Just Suzy. Suzy's got a few screws loose in her head from going to school. The others're right in their mind." He heard the thud, and didn't even bother to ask Brock if he was hurt or not. So little love was shown to the poor mutant.

"School?" Everything else froze, as he stared up at the ceiling. "You mean... NO ONE ELSE has been enrolled in SCHOOL?"

He flew to his feet, opening the door once more and yelling into Flint's face, baring his teeth. "What kind of FATHER _ARE YOU?!?"_

"Just a normal one. Raises kids to be adults, and that's it. No use putting them through school if there's no money. But the bigger ones...they want to earn money. They're out working. In the coal mines. By 6 they're home. They're comin' in soon. "

He stared back silently, firm and immovable under that terrifying countenance. "But Suzy...she wanted to go LEARN something. Wonder if she'll learn anything coming back home."

It was then that Brock realized something, and he said quietly.

"Why.... do you hate me so much?"

"'Cause you're not normal like everyone else. You and Suzy...you're just not normal," he answered as bluntly as possible, staring calmly into the other's inhuman face.

"I see........ Brock suddenly moved backwards, leaning against the wall. "Well, you're going to have to live with it, because I'm not moving---"

"Who dat, Daddy?" A small, infantile voice came from down the hall.

"There's one of 'em, now," Flint said to Brock as he walked across this part of the floor that had not been walked on for a long time towards Cindy, picking her up. "Your brother's back. You got anything to say to him?"

"B-b-b-bwother? " She stared with huge, scared eyes, and clutched at Flint's shirt as tears began to form in them. "Daddy! Stop scawin' me!! Daaadddeee!!!!" She sobbed, choking on tiny little tears as she buried her head in Flint's chest.

Brock felt as if he had been shot, to shocked to do anything but stare at the gun which had fired. He didn't even hear the words that came next.

"Bwock..... Bwock's nicer dan you! And he's nots big and scawy!!!!!"

"See, Brock? Cindy doesn't know you. Nothing good comes from living in a house with people who don't know you."

Brock stared at his little sister.... Who felt more like a daughter, really, and reached out with one of his hands towards her face, desperate for some kind of recognition. He tried to tell her that it was indeed him, that he was her brother that had taken care of her, raised her, almost, who had hugged her and comforted her so much......

But all that managed to come out was this:

"Grrrraaarrrghhh..........!"

And all that Cindy saw were claws of a monstrous hand, grabbing for her tiny little body, trying to steal her life away.....

"STOPPIT!!! DADDY!!!!" She cried, turning her head away as she shut her eyes. "STOPPIT!!!! GETTIT AWAYYYY!!! THE MONSTER'S GUNNA EAT ME, DADDY!!!!! WAAAHHHHH!!!!"

"The monster's not gonna eat you. He's gonna GET OUT right NOW if he knows what's good for him."

Flint picked up Cindy again, glaring with his squinty eyes at the disfigured Pokémon, his glare as stony as his simple name. He now no longer was looking at his son with indifference, but cold, rocky anger, and he made no move to rethink his feelings.

Brock was lost. Lost in his own home, which he had fought and toiled so much to take care of..... He gave Cindy one last look, one last, pained stare, and then turned around, leaning against the wall and slamming a fist upon it as the horrid chokes were heard once more.... But this time, no intelligent speech accompanied them.

Only growls.

He then turned away, not giving a second look backwards as he staggered out the doorway and into the street, past the shops and buildings he knew so well, feeling the gravel he had grown up with underneath his feet, with the cool wind that suddenly felt cold and unwelcoming, and rocks that bounced off his back, thrown by people he had once known.....

He only stopped once, on the outskirts of Pewter, his hands clenched at his sides as his chest heaved.

He didn't turn around as he roared.

*~*~*

The stiff, unpleasant man known as Giovanni Demoni was seated at his desk, with his Persian on a chair adjacent to his him. The classy cat was napping soundly, intermittently growling, as if it was having a nightmare. Its owner looked down at it, concern in his eyes. This was perhaps one of the few things he showed concern FOR.

"Is something the matter, Persian?"

"Mreeeeeeowwwwwwww......" it snarled as it rolled about in its troubled sleep.   
Giovanni stroked it on the head before returning to a massive amount of paperwork, writing feverishly on one contract or bill after another. This irritated him, and hoped that this would be the last disturbance in his day. When he was down to the last stack, he returned his pen to the holder, and thoughts floated through his crammed mind about Gemini. He smiled to himself. It would not be long before it would come crawling back, so full of self-hatred, profuse shame, and perhaps utter submission. His smile turned into a grin, and then soft laughter as he went back to writing.

However, he had little time to ponder the consequences of Gemini's unleashing when inexplicably and uneasingly, a voice was heard from the other side of his desk.

"I have another proposal."

Drops of perspiration slunk down his head as he tried to keep himself from shuddering, but his efforts were in vain, and his large hands were shaking.

"What?" he asked, again using only one word as an inquiry. Persian's nightmare seemed to reach its peak, and it toppled off of the chair, landing on its paws on the floor, but its master failed to notice.

Pleased at the reaction she was getting, Professor Ivy gave a slight smile, slinking into the chair across from him and resting her elbows upon his desk. "Hah-haa... again, if you don't wish to go through with it......"

"What?" he repeated, failing to realize that he was using the exact same word as he had done earlier. What he was aware of was that his blood felt ice cold in his veins, at the very sight of that..woman.

_Little does he know that he hasn't got a choice...._ Ivy's grin only widened, and she leaned her face closer towards him. "Another Pokémon of mass destruction. After many years of searching.... I have finally found it. In fact....." She chuckled, putting a hand to her mouth as she leaned backwards. "It's been right under my nose all along."

There was nothing he had suspected. He only nodded, recieving the information, but not bothering to analyze the whole meaning behind the Professor's words.

"Where is it?"

Persian, who had woken up from its fall, hissed vehemently at Ivy, knowing something was wrong... something was VERY wrong. It was simply too naïve to know what it was.

"Where? Well....." She leaned backwards even further, putting her hands behind her head. "It all depends on how much my finances will increase.........."

The Team Rocket leader frowned at that, and firmly put his foot down. Why was she asking for more? Was the Pokémon worth more than Gemini?

"I am already paying you a hefty amount. What is the potential of _this_ Pokémon?"

Persian continued to snarl, its whiskers raising as its breathing quickened, wanting to pounce.

"Hm," she chuckled, her eyes straying down to the cat. She doubted if it knew how to catch a _fly._ "For one thing, it believes itself to be entirely independent, while it truly needs the hand of an owner to reach its full potential--and relies on strengths other than its own to gain its food, water....... You could call it a 'parasite', if you preferred.... It's considered by many to be nocturnal, and--" Her eyes moved away from Persian and wandered around the interior of the office. "--it prefers dark spaces to the sunlight at any given time. It is a killer; ruthless and bold, with no regrets."

"That could be useful......no regrets....no conscience...no resistance in its heart to keep it from destruction, unlike Gemini. But......." He frowned, noticing a downside that could be detrimental to the whole undertaking. "You said it believes itself to be wild. It has a mind of its own? What good will that do? I already have Gemini, which has a mind of its own, and it will take some doing to eliminate that. Why should I agree to take on another independent thinker?"

Persian advanced slightly, its ivory-hued tail stiff as it raised, as well as the other tufts of its fur, not liking that look on Ivy's face. And why was she looking around the dark, ill-lighted room? What was she looking at? Or for?

"Really, Giovanni, you must realize that _all_ Pokémon have minds of their own before they are..... tamed," Ivy answered, her eyes narrowing further as they finally rested on the man himself. "And trust my word--it has been created entirely by _humans_ to resist _any_ kind of rebellion. In fact..... it is programmed thus far by my own hands to respond to my every command. I believe....." She flashed her teeth. "It is becoming wary of me."

Why did this situation seem completely wrong? It was as if Ivy was holding all of the Aces and Giovanni was stuck with the insignificant Twos. Yet, why would he be so fearful? The scientist was merely a scientist. Most scientists worked for the benefit of mankind, not AGAINST them. And he was a MAN, wasn't he? Yes. Of course. He ALWAYS HAD BEEN a man, and at the PRESENT TIME, he was a man, and he would ALWAYS be a man.

"In that case, I accept your proposition, and will pay what I need to pay," he said in a rather reluctant monotone.

"Good," she flashed her teeth once more, and pulled a small paper from her upper labcoat pocket, laying it on the desk face down. "Here's the estimated cost......"

Giovanni blanched at the amount of money that the scientist was asking for, but this, he assumed, would be taxing work. Perhaps the Pokémon was another pitful once-human that had been subjected to tests, and it would take ample effort to obtain the man, woman, or child that had been cursed with such a fate. The thought of having yet another mutant Pokémon at his disposal quieted his mind, eased his reluctance, and he showed significantly less fear towards Ivy, as he agreed to the proposal.

"Fine. I will pay it in full."

"Very well then. You have made awise--no... an _instinctive_ choice, I see." Ivy stood upwards. "I currently have it in my possession.... In fact, like the other, only a select few injections are needed to bring it to its senses...... and complete submission. If you would care so much as to.... watch, meet me at my lab, say..... Oh, tonight? Eleven o'clock?"

She gave that smile again, that evil, twisted smile....

Persian did not like that smile one bit, but had no concept of what was happening, and it could only wonder. Its master nodded, growing confident again. Gemini had so far proven a success, and knowing this caused his fears to subside, since this destructive Pokémon that Ivy had promised him would most definitely be the same.

"Eleven sharp? I will be there."

"Don't worry. I know you will."

Before Giovanni had a chance to respond to the strange comment, a loud, muffled roar was heard behind the office doors, along with the loud WHOMP of something--or someONE being thrown against them

Giovanni grinned in malicious delight, and the broad man walked with unwavering gait to the doors, and opened them, gazing upon the creature outside of the doors. It had finally returned: it was persistent: a weaker creature would have given up futile efforts sooner. The creature itself was full of some kind of rage... some kind of intense agony, as could be told by the unconscious Roman guards that laid behind him.

"HUUUUUUURRRRROOOOAAAAAARRRGHHH!!!!!!!!"

It roared, the sound of the wail of a lost soul, slowly being consumed by the ferocity of a tiger. For the moment, the instincts had taken their hold on Brock's mind once more, it seemed.

"And I see..... it has lost something on its journey." Ivy stayed put, instead watching in supreme glee from her vanatage point.

The agony was no surprise to the boss of Team Rocket: he had expected it. Facing the creature from a few steps away, and one LUNGE away, he laughed, looking into the creature's enraged blood-red eyes.

"So, you have returned. Is there any reason you are so upset?"

He did not need an answer to this question, but it somehow gave him satisfaction to hear it from the monster's own mouth.

However, this was its only reply:

"GrrrrrAAAAARRRRGGHHH," it raised a hand, pointing a finger at Giovanni and looking the OTHER monster straight in the eyes. "GAAAAAAAARGGH!!!!!!!!"

"As I have expected," Ivy commented calmly. "It has lost its language. A forked tongue can only stand up to _so_ much abuse......."

Giovanni frowned. "Yes, I see," he answered the scientist, looking at the demon-like mutant in its tormented face, and he grit his teeth in frustration. "How am I supposed to communicate with it if it cannot talk?!"

"Well, I suppose I could fix that, now....." Ivy sighed, looking towards Giovanni. "If you insist, of course."

Her tone was more pleasing to him, now. It seemed as if she had discarded some of her Aces.

"Yes, that would be a benefit. Yes...do it," he ordered, turning to Ivy, his eyes filling with anticipation.

Ivy gave a slight smile, whipping out a syringe and advancing towards the monster. The creature suddenly lost all of its hostility, as it began to shrink back into a corner, trying to get away from its tormentor, it's---

"Remember, Giovanni. You insisted." Ivy suddenly whirled around, _away_ from Brock, and _slammed the syringe through Giovanni's sleeve and into_his_arm._

She then pressed down the tab and jerked the needle out, moving backwards. "A benefit. Done."

*~*~*

**Didn't see THAT comin', didja?!? Don't worry, he isn't gonna get it THAT bad.... or will he? If ya wanna find out, read more!! MORE, I SAY!!!! MORE!!!! And for good measure, fill up your spare time by writing a REVIEW!!! Am I repetitive?!? YES!!! If you haven't reviewed thus far, DO SO NOW!!!! In fact, leave MULTIPLE REVIEWS!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!**

**And by the way.... badgers are cool.**

**TO BE CONTINUED........**


	5. Blood Black as Hell

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*  
  
_To: 009_

_Cc:_

_Subject:(no subject)_

_Something weird's going on. Yesterday, I was in Goldenrod, stealing from the mart. Inventory's changed, some. All the Super Potions were gone. I got "Hypers", "X-Potions", "Phoenix Downs", "Softs".....a lot of junk, but they sold high.   
And that ain't the weirdest part. Tangled with these guys in blue suits. They say they're "Turks". I tell 'em they don't look Turkish. They tell me to "Watch your backs. Shin-Ra's going to take you down." I tell 'em to buzz off._

_A week later I stopped over at Mahogany. The minute I come in town...... The HQ's gone. There's a big sign that says "Future site of Mako Reactor No. 9." At the bottom it says "Shin-Ra Inc."_

_Looks like we've got company....or the comapny's got us._

--E-mail from an unidentified Rocket to a codenamed Rocket. Archived by the Goldenrod Police Department.

*~*~*

**Chapter 5:** Blood Black as Hell

*~*~*

Giovanni released a loud outcry of pain as his flesh was punctured by the syringe. Something inexplainable then gripped his brain, and left as quickly as it had entered. And then, a thousand bubbling chemicals raced through the invaded vessel, and Giovanni grabbed his head in pure pain. 

Then..... it stopped. A small drop of blood trickled from his arm, but he did not notice it, affected by the aftershock.

Persian did, seeing the small amount of blood seeping through the clothing. It seemed to be fascinated with it, but sadly naive, it did not comprehend its meaning. 

_Why is it bl--?_

Persian was startled as its master yelled, grabbing his head again, and turning to face Ivy, clutching his arm with the other hand. "What exactly did THAT accomplish---" 

The feline had rapidly forgotten about the blood and strolled towards the water-beaten window, staring curiously through it towards the furious storm, raging at its triumphant peak as a tree blew down to the ground, its branches snapping as the converging gusts of wind blew the broken bark away.

"Mreeeeeeeeowwwwww!!!" _It's still raining....._

"Yes, I can SEE it is still raining---"

Giovanni blinked several times. Ivy's mouth was not moving. SOMEONE was talking, yet he and Ivy were the only humans in the room. But, the voice didn't seem to be coming from one distinct location, but was only inside his HEAD. "Who said that?!" 

"Mreowwwww...Mreeowww!!!"_ Master, are you losing it?_

It was only then that the crime boss realized that the fluid injected into his flesh enabled him to hear the thoughts of Pokémon. It was not at all what he expected, and was certainly not expecting the amount of PAIN that accompanied this...ability.

He was furious with Ivy, and something in that fluid let him show his anger, despite Ivy's unnerving presence.

"Was all of THAT really necessary in order for me to communicate with Gemini?!"

"Was it?" Ivy asked right back, a smile forming on her lips. Ah.... how she loved to see him like that...... even though he seemed to be in control like he always was, she could recognize the small subletities of panic..... a _miniscule_ bit of fear, perhaps, but that was to be expected. "You _did_ insist upon it."

At that moment, another voice was heard:

_Don't touch me..... don't you DARE come near me again..... I'll kill you if you do.... I swear, I'll KILL YOU....._

"And just who _will_ you kill, Gemini?" Still a bit shaken, the leader of Team Rocket continued to clutch his arm, in which the pain hadn't subsided. Outside, lightning struck as he turned to the dark creature in the corner. 

The monster's eyes suddenly darted upwards rather feverishly, at the man in front of it.__

_But---how----did----he? It's the chemicals-----------the---------SYRINGES------Kill..... kill.... all of them.... KILL......_

"That would be highly inadvisable. If you kill your superiors, the dominant beings that are higher than you, that would make you even more of a monster."

_KILL, KILL-------------what?_

The monster's eyes widened in horror, as it gave out a pained growl.__

_You--------ARE-------hearing me!!!! How the--?!?_

"So, Giovanni," Ivy smiled. "Enjoying.... the voices in your head?" She chuckled slightly, as if the whole thing was a huge joke.

The mental voice, not margled by disfigured vocal chords, but as discernible as any human's, resounded inside the evil man's brain, and he looked towards "his" Pokémon, that had regained its regular thoughts, that were driven by despair rather than uncontrollable anger. "By a syringe." His eyes were fixated at Ivy with immense anger, yet at the same time, the eyes were filled with fear.__

_Syringe!??!? _Brock stared in disbelief.

"Yes, Giovanni. A syringe." She held up the empty instrument, smiling wickedly as she inspected the tip, and then looked towards the torn part of Giovanni's orange jacket. The smile seemed to widen with time, until it was a grin of fiendish delight, of catching someone..... "black handed."

"Why, Demoni..... it seems as if you have an ink stain."

"Ink?" The man's narrow eyes slowly wandered down towards the punctured arm, and he slowly, casually brought his other hand on top of it.

"Mreowwwwww!!" _It's---_

"QUIET!!!" he snapped at the feline, this being extremely rare, as he pampered the furry creature as if it was made of precious metals. Persian was shocked, and it inched backwards, mouth agape and red eyes wide. Giovanni scowled, turning back towards Ivy and gritting his teeth slightly. "Yes, it is ink. What is so significant about it?"

"Oh, nothing," Ivy yawned, as she slowly twirled the empty syringe between her fingers. "It's just.... odd, isn't it? That so much of it managed to find its way onto---_into_ the needle....."

Brock blinked, like a cat who was trying to bat at the thread of a conversation, but just couldn't get its paws on it...

And neither could he. He now was fully aware that he had been bleeding for everyone to see, and was enfuriated and nonplussed at the same time: it seemed as if Ivy was trying to drive home a point. Why did she keep on beating the bush around the edges? 

"Yes, the ink can... move."

He was slipping into that uncontrolled state again, and in an instant, felt as if he was a pawn that was standing on the square in front of a queen. He knew that he shouldn't feel this way. After all, he was EMPLOYING her. It was not the other way around. What had he to fear? Yet, as he tried to cover up the "ink", it seemed as if the frightening answer came back to him: HER.

"Really?" She slunk towards him, bringing up the empty syringe towards the same spot as she had before. "Then you don't mind if I take a look? I know a good formula to get ink stains out of fabric... they really _can_ be hell, you know?"__

_What am I missing, here.....? _Giovanni could hear the disconcerting thoughts. _What am I missing.....?_

"Nothing, Gemini. Go back to---brooding."He didn't sound nearly as cold and antagonistic. His fear had resurfaced, and perspiration was dripping down his head. He again tried to avert his eyes away from hers, fearing the consequences. "No, it doesn't matter," he answered abruptly, almost... no, actually BACKING AWAY from the woman.

"Yes, it does."Ivy grabbed the large arm, pulling apart the ripped section of clothing, and then pinching the area where the needle had entered, all before Giovanni could even _protest. _She was rewarded with a single drop of black liquid, of a strange fluid that seemed to run down his skin, causing goosebumps to rise along the way.

"Yes..... I believe this DOES matter...."

Brock could only stare at the strange scene. Although he was too far away to see the miniscule drop of....... _blood_, he _was_ able to tell that something was horribly awry.

"Aghhhhhhhh!!!!!!" the man yelled as the blood trickled down his fleshy arm, leaving a long, ebony trail that left him wide-eyed in absolute horror. "Ivy, what the HELL do you think you're DOING?!? Get your hands OFF me!!"

"I was only checking to see if you had that...... condition...." She said disarmingly, backing away with her hands up. "I'm sorry to say.... that you have a very serious form of it---a genetic disease."

"A genetic---disease??"His eyes widened further in disbelief. "D-don't be foolish----if I did have some type of disease, I would have felt its effects long ago!" he argued determinedly, though it was less convincing, as if he was in denial.

Persian watched, its ears raising, and it looked over towards the dark creature in the room, regarding it with curious gaze.Completely bewildered with the conversation, Brock looked back at the Persian, and suddenly smiled, though it looked more like he was baring his teeth."Grrrooargh?" _You're a cute little fella.... _Had he been in his normal state of mind, he probably would have attempted escape, but after the "welcome" that the residents of Pewter City had given him..... he didn't feel as if there was a point.

"I'm afraid that this one is quite rare....... it slowly causes damage to the lungs, heart..... This "Black Blood"--" The way she so blatantly referred to it as was enough to make anyone wince. "--Cannot carry as much oxygen to organs as a regular cell would, and, in fact, actually carries a considerable amount of _carbon dioxide......_ It can cause permanent damage over a long period of time......"

Persian recoiled, but only slightly. It was too sheltered from the horrors of life: it did not know exactly how to handle itself when a Pokémon acted unfriendly towards it. So it contented itself to walk towards the larger creature, meowing in curiosity. 

Its master stopped backing away, and stood, not quite believing what she had told him, yet not willing to take any chances if she had been right.

"Is there any remedy?"

"Remedy?" Ivy paused, putting a hand to her chin and looking thoughtful. "I suppose..... I could whip something up...."

It was hard to like the sound of _that_.

_Yeah, that's right.... come over here...... _When the Persian was close enough, Brock reached out a hand, and, (making sure his claws didn't get in the way), began to stroke the creature's head, the way Suzie, the breeder, had shown him long ago. "Rrrrgh?" _You like that?_

"Exactly---what is this---something?"

More pauses was equivalent to more fear, that was evidently rising. 

"Mreowwwwwww..."

Persian usually didn't take to strangers petting it, but the manner was so gentle: the razor-sharp claws were a deception. A warm deception. How that could be possible it did not know. Unlike its owner, it rarely plotted anything, instead content to hiss at Meowth while under his protection. It rarely thought anything, especially since its time was spent by sleeping and being pet. There were few Pokémon that sharply contrasted from their trainers. Persian was an exception.

Brock was relieved that _something_ at least wasn't frightened by him, and he continued to stroke the Persian, scratching him with his knuckles behind the ears and patting his sides, again, techniques he had learned from Suzie on the two occasions that he had met her. In response, the cat let its lids drop over its eyes, meowing in great content at the attention. It noticed vaguely that the creature did this with more finesse than its master.

"Oh, well..... it will have to be a secret, won't it? Like the secret you kept about your blood?" She smiled. "Amusing, yes? How a grown man like you could keep such a secret like _that _all these long years......?"

"Amusing to YOU," Giovanni retorted in irritability, finally letting go of his arm, the pain at last abating. "I would have kept it LONGER if you did not stick that...THING in my arm!!!"

"Hm.... Hah-hah...." Ivy giggled slightly. "And what help would _that_ do you? If you had told a doctor earlier, you could have sought proper treatment.... And why _are_ you so desperate to keep it to yourself, mm? Fear? Of something _dark_, something _unknown.....?"_

He did not want to reveal ANYTHING to her, yet it was obvious that he could not change the subject at this point in time. "I do not know WHY it is...there." There was a slight pause. "I am not AFRAID of it! It is only blood! Now that I think of it, it cannot possibly be the result of a disorder. It must be---" He stopped, realizing he may have revealed too much.

"Must be_ what?_ I am very interested in this blood of yours, Demoni.... very interested......" She walked forward towards him once more. "If you are not sure.... of course, I could always _check...."_

The answer was heard loudly and clearly.

"NO! Don't you EVEN... DARE---try to--TEST on me!!" He started to back away again, but was stopped as he found the wall to greet his efforts.

She stopped. "Very well." She then brought the syringe up to her eyes, looking into it. "I can always use..... _this_ sample that I've collected..... Hm." She smiled innocently and walked to the door, opening it. "Remember---Eleven _sharp!!!"_

And with that, the demoness was gone.

Giovanni was standing there, sweating madly, his chest heaving. He was beginning to suspect something... that this Pokémon he was to recieve at the time stated was not really as it should be. More often than not, his indomitable ambition kept his eyes on the prize for as long as it was within reach. But hesitancy gripped him. Thus, he attempted to plot some way to possibly AVOID the meeting.

_.....You're just as scared of her as I am. _There was suddenly a growling snigger, and the sound of a Persian purring to accompany it. Brock was still looking down at the cat, and stroking it in an altogether loving manner. In fact, much attention seemed to be paid to the feline that it was actually _resting_ its head on Brock's shoulder, (away from the spikes), and closing its eyes in pure contentment.

Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was shock at simply seeing his POKéMON rising level with-no... ABOVE his status. But whatever it was, Giovanni's fear subsided as rapidly it had arisen. Showing affection to his PERSIAN..... that was a forbidden line. 

And woe to those who would cross it.

The Rocket leader's visage erupted in a hue of pure rage, and he wrenched the teleporter device from his desk, that also served another purpose.

"I WILL TEACH YOU TO PAMPER _MY _POKéMON, GEMINI!!!!!!!!! NOTHING THUS FAR HAS MADE YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE INFERIOR!?!?!?! MAYBE _THIS _WILL!!!!"

He SLAMMED the button with such force that the device BROKE, but not before sending a beam of light that aimed for the creature's brain, warping the signals that were being sent to it, manipulating it, until it had become controlled.....directed.....by he who had pressed the button. 

"Gemini" gave out a loud roar, and fell backwards onto the ground, jerking away from the feline painfully as he hit the wall. He gave out another strangled cry as he fell to his knees, and clamped his hands down upon his head..... more voices, more CONTROL, more horrible, abominable pain.........

Then.... Brock..... just....... left.

There was another, weak gurgle, and then silence.

The crime lord's rage began to bubble down, like the boiling water on a stove when the lid was opened and the pressure decreased. He stayed where he was, this time, eyes fixated on the creature. He had to test if this had worked before he unleashed its destructive power.

"Get up."

The order was forceful and commanding. All fear had dispersed for the time being.

Gemini paused, and then raised its body upwards, staring blankly at the wall in front of it. It was completely frozen, waiting to be ordered, commanded. Its face was completely dullened and placid, and all of its muscled were tensed, ready to do anything at the will of ITS _master._

Brock.... for the moment, was dead. Perhaps the only place that he was present was in those eyes.... those blood-red _eyes_ that seemed to burn with unending hatred.... perpetual anguish.... In fact, Giovanni's control only heightened the intensity of those eyes, as if Brock's thoughts, emotions, and saddening desires were all focused into them, having no other place to go.....

He had no regard, no pity for the creature's torment. His immortal ambition prevented any type of sympathy for the wailing soul inside the Pokémon...that he was about to send out...to DESTROY...to KILL...to wreak HAVOC and CHAOS Now that it was obedient, he would be able to accomplish this without any mishaps.

"Gemini, the target is the Museum of Science in Pewter City. Dispose of it."

Without a word, without even the slightest of a growl, the brainwashed Pokémon only nodded, suddenly running towards the only window in the office. It looked as if it might crash through it, but just before the claws met the glass, it swung open, directed by some sort of psychic power as the creature that had once been Brock took to the skies. The creature was propelled by some kind of force, the same thing that had opened the window, as it zoomed through the air at incredible speeds, soon disappearing into the thundering, lightning-cracked and stormy skies.

The ambitious man laughed quietly to himself as the lightning flashes illuminated his coarse face, and he made his way towards the window, closing it as a burst of thunder rocked the air with its tremulous crashing. This sound overtook the ensuing yelling as the man turned towards Persian, quite displeased with its acceptance of another caress, especially one coming from a _Pokémon_ that was supposed to be a _weapon_. And at that very moment, the same weapon was about to be activated.

There was a sudden yell that broke Giovanni's concentration, and then another, and another. The shrieks of pain and horror seemed to be coming from far-off, but they were so loud, as if the silencing of a life caused it to at first be deafening. However, even as Giovanni tuned in his ears for it, there was never any earth-shaking roar. Strange, it was.... It seemed as if the Pokémon was carrying out orders, and nothing more, even as a loud crash shook the ground.

The fact that the monster was executing what it had been ordered to do so silently pleased the dark man. Silence when creating chaos implied efficiency. He was undoubtedly pleased. In fact, he was more satisfied with Gemini than ever before, now that it had been stripped of its mind, unable to differentiate right from wrong, but simply living to serve. What sharply contrasted was his feelings towards Persian at the moment, and he did not hesitate to chide it.

"What were you doing, ENJOYING the attention given by that _Pokémon?!_" he fairly exploded, causing Persian to cower, its curled tail quaking visibly. "_I_ am your _master_, not _IT!_ You should be higher than _IT_, but no..you had to accept a scratching from _IT!_! I thought you were smarter than that, Persian."

"Mreeeeeowwwww......" _But...I..._

"SILENCE!!"   
  
Not even a breath was heard from the ivory-furred Pokémon. It was completely frozen, even when its master walked away from it.  
  
"I SHOULD punish you somehow, but there is no time."

He pulled out a watch from his pants pocket, and looked at the ticking hands that moved smoothly across the dial. "It is 10:50. I will be going. Stay here."

The broad-shouldered man stalked rather furiously towards the doorknob, put his large hand on the brass fixture, and began to turn it. He had only moved it a quarter of the way when a horrible feeling of dread swept over him, jabbing into his gut with shocking force. He looked at his watch again. 10:51. There was still time to back out. So he came away from the door, Persian dodging quickly, and Giovanni settled in his chair, looking out the rain streaming down the window. 

The phone rang.

And it rang. Again. And again. And again. The normal rapid succession of beeps that formed a ring had become an ominous deathtoll of doom, as the leader of Team Rocket stared down at the object of his dread.

It was nearly a minute before he picked it up.

"........."

"Demoni! It's Ten fifty-six!" Ivy's normal slow, silky tone seemed almost... urgent this time.

He finally answered. "Yes. I know that. Listen...... I want out of the deal."

One rushing, hurrying, desiring to avoid crossing paths, and the other wholly in favor of it.

"Out? Don't be so ridiculous! You already AGREED. You _can't_ back out.

"....You HAVE to come."

"Alright... I will be right down."

The large man eased the phone onto its cradle, instead of his normal habit, which was to slam it down in a fit of rage. 

"Stay here," he ordered Persian while leaving the comfort of his chair and approaching the doorknob again. His watch read 10:57. With a deep inward sigh, he left the office, not knowing when he would return...

*~*~*

**Ut-oh... things aren't looking so good! What will become of Pewter City at the hands of the brainwashed Brock? What IS the mystery behind this new Pokémon that Giovanni will be soon acquiring? And DUDE, where IS my car?!??!**

**Anyway, chapter 6 is already typed. We'll just leave you in suspense for now. :P**

**TO BE CONTINUED.....**


	6. Fall of a Caesar

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**an-thro-po-cen-tric **(an'thre pô'sen'trik) **_adj. _**[see ANTHROPO--] centering one's view of everything around man, or humans

*~*~*

**Chapter 6: **Fall of a Ceasar

*~*~*

Again, Ivy was waiting, leaning against the wall just outside the door. She smiled just as she had when Giovanni and the guards brought Gemini. The only difference was.... there was only Giovanni.

".....Good."

She gave him a strange smile. "I'm glad you followed through."

He was silent. Somehow, the fact that he was alone disturbed him. Usually it didn't. It sufficed that he was alone. But it was almost as if Ivy did not want...any witnesses. If only Gemini hadn't knocked out his personal guards.... Yet, what was the worst that could happen? She had promised him a Pokémon. It was 11:00. The time was now.

"Well, come in!" The witch smiled as she interrupted his thoughts, opening the door. She walked through, calling back towards him. "You won't be disappointed, I'm sure!!! With this Pokémon...... you will have more power than you _ever_ imagined."

What was this..false sense of security she was attempting to lead him into? Whatever it was, it did not fool him this time, and he was very wary as he stepped into the horrifying laboratory once again, his eyes narrowing as they darted around its dark, musty interior.

"Where is it?"

Ivy was behind the table.... the table that Brock had been strapped down to earlier. She was sharpening some sort of instrument, and turned her head back towards Giovanni, frowning. "You don't see it?"

"No, I don't. Something with that much power should be at least VISIBLE..." Giovanni said in some disappointment, overrun by rising fear, as his eyes continued to shift about the insufficiently-lighted room. His ears caught the sound of something scraping, but wasn't able to see what it was that Ivy was toying with.

"Hm......" The scientist sighed in a strange sort of exasperation. "Men...... so..... unobservant." She paused, and said into the air. "The specimen will most definitely try to escape.... Computer. Seal off all exits..... activate automatic soundproof panes."

_Escape? There is no one here but her and myself....._

The disconcerting sound of an airlock closing behind Giovanni was suddenly heard.

"Oh, yes....." Ivy called back once more, as she went on to her other instruments. "And about the creature?"

Silence.

"Just look down."

Giovanni's flow of aggravated thoughts was cut off by Ivy's intimidating voice. His eyes widened in incredulous disbelief as he heard those three words. "Look down? At what?"

He did so, and as there was nothing to see on the FLOOR, she probably meant---_him_--_self._....but it couldn't be. His head snapped back up and his dark eyes shot an angered glare at the other. "Enough of this foolishness! Where is the--------"

Then he saw Ivy's smile. So full of mockery and ill-feeling, and only then.... it hit him like a hundred bullets shot into his heart: _HE WAS THE CREATURE._ That would explain the blood... that would explain the condescending stare that Ivy always regarded him with.... but no, not the blood. A memory struggled to enter his mind. He saw an infant: an infant bleeding. An infant bleeding black. The memory was gone. He stared at Ivy in pure shock and disbelief...and then it rose rapidly into rage.

"You... were PLAYING ME for a FOOL this WHOLE TIME!!!"

"A fool? No, no, no....." She turned around, arching an eyebrow. "I never lied, did I?" She had a cloth in her hands, with which she was cleaning a small scalpel. "I never actually _said_ anything _untrue_, did I?" She paused.

"Did I, _Zero-X?"_

"No......you didn't..." the other answered, ashamed that he could even FALL for such underhanded deception, him being a good utilizer of it himself.

That name...or was it a number?

"Is...that....my...real..name?"

His anger fled, it being replaced with the escalating fear, that was making his black blood run cold within him.

She continued to clean her instrument, and looked down at the scalpel as she wiped it. "You seem to be accepting this rather quickly, _Zero-X....._ Or perhaps it's just the preparatory chemicals that I've been administering during your sleep..... In any case, _Zero-X_, you seem to be acting quite unlike Giovanni."

"During.... my SLEEP? While I recuperate.....you....turn me..into a monster??"He clenched both of his fists, the knuckles whitening. There was no way that he could accept this so easily. He posessed too much pride to submit so quickly and completely. "NO! I am HUMAN! I am the LEADER of TEAM ROCKET and the VIRIDIAN CITY GYM!!! I CAN_NOT _be the MONSTER that you speak of!!!!"

"I thought you would say something like that," Ivy continued to drawl calmly. "Feel the back of your neck. The part that's hidden by your collar."

Fearing immensely what kind of surface his fingers would touch at the indicated part, Giovanni shakily raised his fleshy hand towards the back of his neck, and immediately pulled it away as he yelled in terror."What are these... dry..... leathery... they feel..... METALLIC.....?"

He felt again, pressing down the cold skin that did not give way to his touch. "Scales....... I have.... SCALES!?! But it is..... no! It CANNOT be true!!"

Yet the hardened scales told him otherwise.

"I'm afraid you do, Giovanni. I'm surprised you didn't notice earlier how much Zero-X seems to shine through you.... Not just physically. Oh, no. It seems as if you've been carrying him around... since.... Oh, since early childhood, I should think. And.... if you don't believe me..... I believe the biological timer that I set in you is going off. Of course, a syringe is needed for the FULL change to occur, but just so I can make my point......" She turned back towards her instrument. "Go ahead and look in the mirror behind you. It'd be a good way for you to deflate your ego.The change will speed up by a hundred when I administer the serum."

The aforementioned gym leader hesitated, not wanting to know what kind of horrid sight he would see. Steeling himself for the shock, he turned around, his eyes meeting the... vermillion eyes...... in the mirror behind him. He turned away.

"What..... IS this?!!"

Giovanni turned back to the mirror, and beheld lengthening, widening fangs that were irregular in size, lining the whole of his mouth. His eyes widened in complete horror as he covered them, as if the sight had burned his retinas, only to see that the scales were crawling up his HANDS, and at the ends of his fingers, nails were sharpening into CLAWS. This..... all of this had to be..... IMPOSSIBLE..... it HAD to be a nightmare..... It could happen.... to a worthless YOUTH, of course.... but.... but HIM?!?!? GIOVANNI DEMONI?!?!? LEADER OF TEAM ROCKET..... No.... it was NOT possible.... this was not........ not........... _SUPPOSED_ TO HAPPEN.....

Afraid to see what else was WRONG about his physical features, he turned away from the mirror again, grasping his head..... Jesus.... Christ........ his HEAD. All of his dark brown hair had disappeared, leaving only the rough, coarse scales..... that were the simultaneously pure and impure color of his blood. Unbelievably, unconceivably, that was not the worst of it. He looked down behind him, only to see a muscular..... TAIL...... grow from his flank, that was beginning to be swallowed up with scales as well. This... combined with the fact that it was completely UNSTOPPABLE.... and would only become worse, sent him lunging backwards into the edge of the dreaded table, giving out a terrified yell of one who thought they were "wrongfully" damned.

Ivy only smiled. She didn't even look behind her, as she heard the perturbing sounds of clothes ripping and flesh growing, "Computer.... administer the automatic restraints."

Almost immediately, six metallic.... ARMS jerked out of the low ceiling just above the table, grabbing Giovanni by his now-scaled arms and legs, and practically throwing him down onto the cold surface. Bands of metal then seemed to lunge out of the table itself, wrapping themselves over the "man" as he struggled in futility. If only... if only that damned GEMINI hadn't knocked out his GUARDS.....

Escape was impossible.

This was a NIGHTMARE.....with no way out. A living, true nightmare. He was trapped...... trapped by the metallic straps, constricting his every movement. He couldn't even BREATHE without difficulty: the bands were wrapped so tightly against his now-scaled chest, below which the lungs were being pressed upon without mercy. He vaguely noted that his body was growing... gradually changing in size and shape, the flesh ripping through his shirt, snapping through his tie, and eventually tearing through his pants and shoes, until he was lying there so unconventionally stripped of his clothes, exposed and vulnerable, and, as Gemini had been so recently before, at the mercy of IVY.

"Not so cocky now, are you, Zero-X?" Satan in woman-form asked, waltzing over towards the table. She leered down over him, grinning. In her hand was the syringe. "Just think.... the moment that I plunge this SYRINGE into your INHUMAN, SCALED and utterly REPULSIVE arm....." She smiled again. "You will be MINE. Under my complete control....... much like Gemini is now." She predicted what his response to that would be. "Oh, yes. Gemini is indeed under MY control. Your control will only last for.... oh, a half-hour more. And besides..." She grinned.

"Pokémon _can't train_ Pokémon."

THAT hit him like brass knuckles in the eye, fast and furious, and he was wholly devastated. The fact that all of his ambitions were rapidly heading for the drain, that Gemini would no longer be obedient to him, and.....worst of all, that HE would be SUBORDINATE to Professor IVY.

"NO!! You cannot DORRGGGGGGRRRRGGARGHHH this!!!!"

He was absolutely horrified when he heard that.... inhuman..... monstrous....... roar come from..... HIM. It was a deadly blow to his pride.

"What?" Ivy mocked him, putting a hand to her ear. "I didn't quite catch that, darling----could you growl it _again?"_ She was enjoying all of it. Little did Giovanni know that her goals were not entirely directed by a lust for power and sadistic pleasure. There was a grudge she held, a distinct grudge....

The transformation staggered, and all he could feel was a piercing pain that racked through his slowly deforming body. The man...... that was now half-monster, shut his fearsome eyes and his vile mouth, not wanting to let Ivy derive even MORE pleasure from his horrible, horrible pain that affected both mind and body. But, almost as an instinct, he growled again at the mockery, this time with no words to distinguish it as even remotely human, but an unnatural, abnormal cry much lower in pitch..

"GRRRAAHHHGGGRRRGGH!!!"

"Couldn't help that, could you? Ivy grinned, grabbing his chin with her thumb and forefinger. "Awwwww, poor Giovanni..... If only your MOTHER could see you now....... The LEADER OF TEAM ROCKET...... a _FREAK_."

Was that..... bitterness in her voice? It wouldn't be surprising. The pleasure she was getting out of the whole thing...... it was sickening.

"She leaned forward, closer to Giovanni's deforming features. "Yes.... GIOVANNI DEMONI..... son of the PRESTIGIOUS GLORIA DEMONI..... The only son, the only heir.... Hah-haaa...."

She smiled again, leaning yet closer, until she was but an inch from the his nose, the scales, the fangs. "And of course, _a father never remembered......"_

"STOP.....THISRGGGRRRHHHH....." the "man" growled, with each passing second the horrifying sound becoming wilder, more animal, the humanity slowly leaving the syllables of his words. His eyes widened as the hateful woman rubbed it in so thoroughly, about everything, as if she was pouring salt over a fresh wound. All this...reminding him that he was SUPPOSED to be the successor, yet was ending up much, much, MUCH LOWER. He wasn't being transformed into JUST a Pokémon, but a MUTATED Pokémon... the kind of which that could never be accepted among the normal ecosystem. And then... that last thing she said... about a father..... but his thoughts were dimming, now. What could she have meant by that? He was too overcome by the agony to think anymore.

"And why SHOULD I stop it? Did I stop it on Gemini, eh? Did YOU stop it on.... Mewtwo?" Ivy suddenly paused. "Hm. You forgot about _that_, however....." She then pulled away from the..... CREATURE, taking a scalpel from her instrument tray.

"Now.... for the first incision." She plunged the scalpel into Giovanni's left shoulder, ripping the newly-scaled and rather tender flesh down to the elbow. Then, with revolting glee, she pulled apart the flesh, as if trying to look at the muscles underneath.....

And all the while, the black blood flowed.....

He easily could have answered the earlier question, because it only required one word: no. But he hardly had a chance to answer: his flesh was being TORN APART, ripped into chunks by that horrid instrument. He could feel the utter torment of the parts of flesh dropping away, letting that repulsive ebony fluid spill in opaque rivers from the ripped scales, and he growled in hatred and anguish. Yet, he had shown no mercy to the two aforementioned Pokémon. Even though he was not doing it directly, the intention was there. Now that he was living through this torrid hell, he almost--ALMOST--wished that he had shown some....but it was much too late for that.

Ivy indeed let the flesh drop to the ground, but before she could even _use_ these incisions for anything, she moved to the OTHER shoulder, positioning her syringe over the flesh THERE as well.....

"I suppose you DON'T remember your father, then?" she said calmly, as she began to carve into the flesh of THIS arm as well. "Hm... you must have blocked it out, seeing that you have a rather weak mind..... A pity. Do you know his name, at least? You could perhaps contact.... later.... the man who is responsible for your current condition....."

She jerked the scalpel once more, and another large chunk of flesh fell.

"My.....faRRRRRGGGHHther?" the half-man growled in absolute pain, the volume of the sound rising rapidly as the other arm was hacked open in a manner that would ensure the optimal anguish. He grit his... fangs, trying to endure this intense AGONY. Howver, both of his arms being cut open, the muscle beneath exposed, and being told that his FATHER was responsible for all of this sent him to the end of his limits, and the growl rose into a monstrous roar, expressing the full extent of his doubled pain.

"You don't need to revel in your agony," Ivy gave a sigh of exasperation as she moved to Giovanni's twisted calves and thighs, taking out square chunks in each. "It's already obvious that you feel much pain." She smiled as she made an incision. "Your great and wonderful MOTHER never told you about your _Daddy?"_

He shook his deforming head furiously in answer to the question, and as the upper and lower portion of his leg was opened, feeling the black blood gush down the remaining flesh. He was under such great negative stress that the perspiration coating his head was not sweat, but BLOOD. It was truly a work of the devil to make the leader of Team Rocket sweat BLOOD. However, Ivy and the devil were almost synonymous with one another.

And then the same devil incarnate approached the chest.....

"Hah. I'm surprised she didn't warn you about potential dangers..... Heh-heh.... Then again, you WERE only a.... 'brat child', if I'm correct...

Her voice suddenly turned to ice.

"And yet, you still loved her."

His voice was equally cold.

"Yes... GRRRHHHHHHH.... she was the only one that took caRRRGHHe of me... she did not love me, and made suRRRRGHHe she showed it, but did not..... everRRRGGGHH tRRGHeat me infeRGHHHior because.....of..the...RGHHHblood......EverRGHHyone else..tRGHHheated me as a.....FGHRReak..until I became betterRRGHHHHH......"

He paused to shut his crimson eyes, the memories attacking his mind unrelentlessly. "I loved herRRRRRHGGGGGHHHHH because she.....did me that one favoRRRGGHHHHH."

It was odd for him to be sharing this memory with the abominable woman that was looming over him as the dominant being, but he was in such a pitiable state: with his flesh down from his shoulder to the elbow and from the thigh to the ankle practically gouged open, he was not in the rightest of mind.

Ivy suddenly pulled away, her eyes narrowing. She turned around towards the computer, silent as she began to punch numbers in. "And I suppose....... you don't remember...... Belle, do you?"

"BelleGRRRHHHRRR...?"

He shook his head, that was slowly being swallowed by the raven-hued scales. He had no recollection of the name whatsoever in the currently-hazy cavern that was his mind. And now there was something new to fear, and he strained his dark neck to look at the computer, alarmed as Ivy entered the codes..... However.... the numbers.... Why were they so hard to read....?

"Your _sister._" Ivy entered a final code, and turned around towards Giovanni once more. There was a definite bitter tone in her voice, of a grudge, long past..... "You don't remember her at all? If I recall my data correctly, she followed you everywhere."

"My.....sistGRRRGAAARGGHH???" All this was coming too quickly for him to withstand. So much information, and a _Pokémon_ brain to absorb it? He couldn't handle it. Anger flashed in his monstrous scarlet eyes, and he accused in the distorted voice: "NoRGHhhhhhHh... I neverRGHHH had one."

"So.... you even deny that she existed," Ivy said in complete callousness, walking towards him again with a syringe in hand. "Your sister, who loved you so much----By the way, these chemicals are to enlarge your muscle strength and body mass."

She stabbed the needle right into the _muscle._... and then his OTHER shoulder muscle, and his leg muscles, and then his ABDOMINAL muscles.....

"A sister who wasn't loved by anyone, whose only joy in life was their older brother, a sweet, caring older brother......"

Torturous pain struck every square inch of the five areas that the needle had plunged into, and Giovanni threw back his head, which connected with the unforgiving table, and which increased the horrribly tormented notes of the ensuing roar. He couldn't even THINK......... as the thread-thin objects of torture seared through the muscles, pumping whatever revolting chemical that was contained in that vile glass tube directly into the layers of tissue, bringing on excruciating pain. He didn't seem to HEAR Ivy anymore, so focused on his own torment, but the woman's words registered in his brain, perhaps to make their mark later.

"Yes....." She moved away as Giovanni slowly and in excrutiating PAIN, began to grow in size. "A sister who was left at Pokémon Tech with her brother, who would always protect her, always take care of her when their mother was away...."

Suddenly, inexplicably, she slammed her fist on the control panel in anger. "And then, that day that she pushed him.... she didn't mean to push him... she didn't mean to do it so hard..... He fell.... on his knee..... he CUT himself......"

The terrible roar jumped five decibels and dropped two octaves lower as the mutating figure on the table began to enlarge, two of the smaller straps snapping simultaneously, and the table beginning to crack under the sheer size and weight of the deforming monster. Every minute that passed, all he could feel was pain. Pain as he never felt before, but would feel again, each time doubling and tripling until it became unbearable.

The heavily deformed figure raised his eyes, staring towards the woman in loathing, the words of her again going unanswered, but registering in the brain. There could be no doubt that Ivy hated him for some reason, some reason he could not remember. But why was she talking about his sister? Thad had NO bearing on the subject.

She stared back, not even _flinching. _"Everyone stared at the blood. The nurse came, and even she refused to touch it. They threw him out of the school. They yelled at his---YOUR wonderful mother. You both left.

"And you left your sister there. No one liked her. She was the freak's sister. She was an outcast. She got straight A's, yes, but no one cared. Even the teachers were cold.

"She finally came home. Her mother didn't pay the least bit attention to her, but she didn't care. She just wanted to see her brother. She saw him..... he was..... sitting in the garden.... staring into the coy fish pond. She yelled. She ran up to hug him."

Ivy's eyes were now burning, with complete and utter hate.

"Do you know what you did, _Vanni_?"

_Vanni........_

That name... He was once called that with tenderness..... Ivy only used it with as much malice as humanly possible.

His roar was softer than the last, so overcome by the pain in his muscles...his skin...and EVERYTHING else, that it was draining him af after the zenith of physical torment, and he only had the strength to shake his head. He had no idea of what he could have possibly done to the unfortunate but insignificant girl that Ivy was talking about.

"You looked up at her.... you HATED her. Then you grabbed her by the shoulders and you slapped her.... again.... and again.... and again.... and then you threw her into the coy pond.... and walked off.....

A distant look came to her eyes.

"I think a Goldeen saved her...... She didn't tell anyone. She just went to her room and cried.... still wet, she laid on the bed and cried.... No one loved her. Her brother HATED her. And every time that vacation that he saw her in the hall or after a meal..... He'd punch her in the stomach, or stomp on her foot, or slap her again, or shove her against the wall...... she never said anything. Nothing."

She shook her head, and dropped the bombshell in the form of a an almost-----ALMOST----teary-eyed question, like a small girl asking a cruel adult about something they had done:

_"How come you didn't love me anymore?"_

Four long minutes entered and left before Ivy recieved an answer. In between her innocent question and his nonthreatening answer, he could only STARE. But while his body remained motionless, his thoughts raced, trying to keep up with floods of memories that piled up within his brain.

_Impossible.....she did not say what she just said right now, did she? It CAN'T be the truth... myeslf... and... HER? Related?!? Unthinkable!! Yet, now there is a memory so clear...... it is almost as if it was yesterday..... I was cruel to her... unnecessarily cruel.... she is human..... and I am..... maybe... was not. Why didn't I love her... as a....... sibling...... anymore?_

"Because youRGHHH......you.RGHHHRRRRRR...revealed me to be...not......RGHHHHHHnormal...by shoving me and making me RGHHHHHHHH bleed....I was RGHHHRRR...hated and despised GRRRRReverywhere, same as youRGH----"

The bombshell suddenly hit and exploded with earth-quaking force.

"NORGHHHHHHH!!!!!! NORRRGHHNORRRHHHNORHHHHHH!!!!! WE ARERRGHH NOT KIN!!! NEVERRGHHHHH!!!!!"

The debris settled after a vast amount of time, but it left an enormous rift between the two forces in the conflict within his muddled mind.

"YouRGHHHRR should not wonderRRRGHHHHH why I hated youRHHHHHGGGHH. YouRGHHH made my childhood more hellRHHHH than it already was. I doRGHHHHH not regret hurting youRGHHHG. You brought it upon youRRRGHHself."

There was another long, drawn-out moment of silence after the explosion of noise. One could almost sense the tension and the hatred building as Ivy's arms began to shake in anger, and she began to advance upon Giovanni.

"Then MOTHER left YOU in charge of the corporation. Hah. HAH_HAH_HAH. I had to make a living for MYSELF, _VANNI_. I had to WORK. I had to TOIL. And did you do anything about it?"

She grabbed a syringe, and her eyes were as hot with anger as the molten lava spewing out from a volcano.

"NO!!!!!!"

_I didn't know...... damn it, Ivy------Belina----Belle------I DID_NOT_KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

The hateful syringe...... at the end of which projected the loathsome needle... was coming towards him in the hands of his vengeful sibling. He tried to move, to somehow get off the accursed table, but was entirely FROZEN, engulfed by stark terror.

"Do you know what it's like? To work for OTHER PEOPLE who won't PROMOTE you, won't PAY you unless you have the RIGHT BLOOD?!??! THE RIGHT FRIENDS IN THE RIGHT PLACES?!!?"

She brought the syringe down upon his huge chest.

"NO!!!!"

She stabbed again.

"NO!!!"

She stabbed again, and again, and again.

"NONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The needle had lost its original purpose: now it was being used as a weapon, ripping through the flesh and nearly reaching the vital organs beneath it. The pain overwhelmed him...every breath that was taken was countered by that powerful needle, doubling the torment. Every time his chest rose, down came the syringe, forcing it back down. But as his body suffered under the blows, his mind was clearing.

_Is she right in doing this? I ignored her half of my life.... I didn't remember that she actually existed.... but.... I could have intervened..... and..... no..... that doesn't justify it..... not for what she is doing now...... virtaully KILLING me..... No.... NO.... If I had a choice, I would take DEATH over THIS-----torture....._

"DID YOU LIKE THAT?!??! DID YOU?!??! DIDJA??!?!"

If Ivy had been a bit cuckoo in the head before, now she was COMPLETELY off her rocker. She lunged for yet another syringe, and put it over Giovanni's throat this time, just an inch above the leathery hide.

"Communication.... Heh-heh..... seems as if you rely heavily on COMMUNICATION, eh?!? SPEECH?!??! Well, what if you couldn't SPEAK anymore?!? Then what?!?!"

She paused and then shrieked into Giovanni's hideous mask of pain. "THEN WHAT, VANNI?!??!"

"NoRGHHHHH..... not...... not that...... God, no....."

He was growing more subdued by the minute, too exhausted to resist any more of this pain that was being inflicted so mercilessly. He knew his protests were futile, since she would do it anyway. She was too driven by insanity to show mercy.

And he was right.

She very gently thrust it in and pushed down the liquid into his throat muscles, tightening them, loosening them..... At all the WRONG places, and then finally pulled away and leaned in close to the monsters barely-discernible face. "Now.... tell me if that hurts."

"GRRRRRROOOARRRRRRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

No words came out. There were NO_WORDS. None at all. The liquid had warped and mangled the vocal chords....and had "silenced" the "man" who utilized them so frequently.

"As I suspected." Ivy grinned, moving away. "Now, don't you AGREE that a creature WHICH cannot SPEAK isn't worth ANYTHING intellectually?"

She whirled around once more. "WELL?!??!?"

He... that was slowly becoming an it, roared again, in futility trying to answer her, but had lost all verbal communication save for that low-pitched roar.

"I suppose not," her face calmed slightly, as she reached for the final chemical, the last serum..... and more than probably the most dreaded.

"So.... are you finally ready to SUBMIT to the CONTROL of another_...... ZERO-X?"_

"RRRRROARRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!"

The fear in his......its blood-red eyes could not be explained by words alone. The syringe was like a knife ready to be plunged into his very heart... it was absolute... it was supreme..... and it was about to render him, Giovanni, the boss of Team Rocket and the leader of the Viridian City Gym, a complete SLAVE to his _SISTER._

"I suppose not..... But then again," she smiled that evil, twisted, wicked smile, the smile of a sadist created by festering years of rage, the smile of a falcon just as it swoops down upon its prey. Her power would be total, absolute.

And it was then that she revealed to him what her goal would be.

"But then again....... I don't suppose Team Rocket could go on forever..... without being destroyed...... somehow...."

She raised the syringe above her head, much like she had with Gemini. She was preparing for the final blow, the culmination of the entire diabolical process, and would show no mercy.

The creature that was Giovanni realized the meaning of her words, her foremost goal.... to destroy the organization that her brother led, and he tried to combat it with the essential speech, but only terrified roars, those inhuman cries, rewarded his efforts, all the while with the all-powerful instrument about to destroy him in every imaginable way.

"The only difference is....." She leaned in closer, just as she raised the syringe yet higher.

"YOU will be the destroyer."

Then, after one second of letting Giovanni decipher the meaning of the words, she stabbed it down, straight into his chest, almost---ALMOST--puncturing his heart, as the black blood flowed and the chemicals rushed through his traumatized body.

It took him a split second for him to realize what it meant, but before he could roar in protest, the horrible process began, bringing with it a gigantic onrush of immense agony. A crackle of dark energy engulfed his body, expanding it to its full size, with the knife-like claws growing to their maximum length, the ebony scales hardening to the thickness of stone. The creature's once-straight spinal cord curved into an arch, increasing its already disfigured appearance. The tail shot to its full length, giant spikes protruding along the back of the thick, reptillian limb. The mouth, which foamed with sea-green saliva, was filled with two and three inch fangs that caged a long, lizard-like tongue that projected from the jaws, that were lengthening, as if being stretched out of his face, into the muzzle of so many cold-blooded animals. A scarlet stripe formed along the snout and upper arm, three of them appearing on his arched back, giving sharp contrast between the rest of the flesh. The eyes swelled, growing in size, until they were two distinct basins of the hottest hells, glowing in their perpetul blood-crimson. At last, a razor sharp horn pushed out of the flesh, standing at an angle above the head.

He... that was fully an IT... roared with all its inhuman might, the flesh of its leather-like neck rippling as the sound was amplified by the monster being whole.

This was no longer Giovanni, but Zero-X.

Completely and totally.

"So.... you must be the one who's been living through my brother all these years....." She circled the creature, nodding in approval at it, much like Giovanni had done to Brock earlier. The tables had turned... completely. "I suppose you will be useful......."

She then said in a rather pleasant monotone: "Computer..... Undo straps."

*~*~*  
**..............................**

**Keep reading this story....**

**And review.**

**If you dare.**

**To be continued........**


	7. Fires of Damnation and Damnable Chess

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**DMB: **Okay, okay... this chapter gets a bit melodramatic. :/ Sorry. However, AVALANCHE MAKES AN APPEARANCE!!!!****

**B9T: **Stay tuned for chapter 8. ^_^

**DMB: **Yeah, it's better.... REALLY, it is. People get eaten, Cass, Butch and Domino are introduced..... and things go boom. ^_^

*~*~*

"Pain makes the body master of the will."

--*Giovanni Demoni, to Mewtwo. (Mewtwo Returns)

*Dialogue recorded by Team Rocket Master-Helicopter computer. When questioned by employees, Demoni denies any knowledge of the ocurrence, save for a feeling of "utter defeat".

*~*~*  
  
"Why won't she train ME?!?!??!"

--Brock Bravestone, about Professor Ivy (PokéBall Peril)

*~*~*

**Chapter 7: **Fires of Damnation and Damnable Chess

*~*~*

The agreeable Pewter sky had been transformed. At its northernmost ends, screams of the doomed punctuated the air, as their more fortunate companions evacuated the condemned museum that was ablaze with dark fire. The monster that had once been Brock was lethally efficient, attacking the structure from multiple sides at great speeds, blowing out whole sections of the building that crushed the people beneath.  
  
A boy of about ten or twelve came rushing to front of the museum, a baby Rhyhorn at his side. Without a second thought, he ran into the burning building, the billowing smoke causing him to cough. Layers of the ceiling tumbled down, their light fixtures exploding into flames. The fire burned a slice of the wall off, and it plummeted down to the floor, sealing off the door. And the dark fire continued to burn. He now had no choice. The boy resolutely headed deeper into the scorched institution, searching for the living.

The living.... what a joke. Bodies were strewn everywhere, of visitors---men, women, children---the employees, and the scientists.... the scientists.... they looked as if they had been mauled inside out, their blood splattered on the burning walls, with their mangled bodies lying in pools of what seemed to be red gasoline.

And then, the screams of the rest. Not the living, but the _dying._Their cries of tortured pain as they suffocated in the dark clouds of smoke that refused to rise to the sky, as they were crushed under falling walls, those surviving the blows finding themselves trapped, and trying to escape from the _flames...._

Who---WHAT---could have CAUSED such a thing to happen? To the MUSEUM, of all places. The haven of the peaceful scholars, the place where school children were dragged to learn about history...... What had the school children---who were all lying in the center hall.... which had just collapsed----what had _they_ done to deserve such a fate? And in PEWTER of all places, one of the most peaceful, caring communities in all of Kanto.....

A community of hypocrites.

"It was the MONSTER!!!!" One yelled, a survivor of the first blast. "He came down---like---like DEATH, swipin' everywhere with these big------huge------CLAWS!!!!!! And then he threw these.... these... ENERGY things and it hit the GAS, and-----I tried to save 'em, but I couldn't!!! They were already DEAD!!!!"

The man in question had stepped on their groaning bodies in his escape.

However, the people believed him, as the entire city watched in horror, either from afar or from their TV sets. No one dared enter. Officer Jenny was still recuperating from being attacked by the same MONSTER, and the trainers of the Pewter City Gym were content to hold a conference with Flint, the leader, and plan a rescue, without actually DOING anything.

They were cowards. All of them.

Except for one.

And that one was a mere boy.

"Anyone---alive here?" the lone boy called out, in between fits of coughing. The sheets of noxious smoke inflamed his throat and stung his eyes. He felt as if his chest would explode: the toxic fumes slowly poisoned his lungs, his arteries, his veins. Why had even gone into the building, to search for the living among the dead? The bloody, desecrated corpses that could not be helped in body anymore?

Because no one else would.   
  
The smoke-covered boy struggled along, searching in futility, tripping over the corpses and landing in their stagnant blood, and with no one to aid in his useless, pointless search. He was alone with the dead, their silence beckoning him to become one of them. But the boy refused to believe that. He ran through the puddles of blood and the poisonous haze, desperately gasping for air as he made his way towards a faint voice. Whoever he was, he was fading, but it was not silent. There was still some LIFE. The dead couldn't be physically saved. But the living, even though their thread of existence was hairs away from the blade, had hope, however dim.

"Hang on!!"

The boy was filled with a new vibrance, and he ran towards the weak whisper.  
  
But when he arrived there, there was only a corpse, a pool of cinnabar leaking out of the neck where the medulla had been severed. The head still had a mask of inexplainable terror, the eyes wide open, the face of the dead staring straight at the boy, maintaining the frozen gaze even as the dark, rising flames fed on the corpse, devouring it slowly, as the boy could only stare in fear, and could only wonder.....WHAT did this.

However, before the young boy could wonder any more, there was a sudden thump. The sound.... it didn't fit in with the sound of crackling, burning flesh, dripping blood, the crashes of falling walls... It just.... didn't belong... 

The baby Rhyhorn at his side began to whine, nudging its muzzle into the boy's side. It was breathing rather quickly, grunting squeakily in urgency. 

However, there was suddenly a new sort of sound... a new being breathing.... harshly. With exertion. From a hoarse throat which could only roar, grunt, and growl.... The.... THING.... that had done this.... ALL of this.... It was breathing down his NECK......

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale.

It was doom hovering over him. The boy was frightened beyond words. He slowly turned around, beholding the terrifying monster. It was unlike anything he had ever seen in his life, and it was right in front of him, ready to kill him without mercy unless he did something first. He looked at his Rock/Ground Pokémon, and ordered it in urgency to, instead of attack like most trainers did, defend itself.

"Rhyhorn, Harden!"

The small Rhyhorn did it as it was told, its granitic body growing more resistant to outside forces. The boy encouraged it in a calm, yet forceful tone, and stood beside it, with the freak of nature facing him. Someone had to get out of there alive......

The boy was hoping that no one would have to die, maybe not even the vicious killer. Yet, life just didn't work that way......

The creature didn't move an inch. It just stood there, watching with narrowed eyes as the child tried to save the Pokémon.... As the child risked its own life so that the Pokémon would live....

The monster didn't care in the slightest.

It lunged forward, baring its teeth and licking its deformed lips with its forked tongue. It was then that the blood became visible---crimson, human blood dripping down its claws, its chin, its lips.... its TEETH...... canines, sharp as the blades of knives...

And now, for the final kill. A small, after-meal dessert. Yes, and the Rhyhorn would be an easy meal as well..... Blood..... BLOOD was all it wanted, all it cared about..... Strange. It had been ordered ONLY to destroy. Then again, its master had been consumed by instincts as well....

"GrrrooooAAAAAAAAARRRGHHH!!!!!!" It growled and hissed in a hideous show of power, arching its neck as it stared downwards at the terrified boy with its glowing red eyes. Although they were partially covered with bangs, brown bangs that were plastered to the forehead of the creature, they were still demonic, hellish in---------------BROWN.....BANGS...... plastered to the creature's forehead.... brown hair..... drenched with sweat and blood, sticking out all over again.... SPIKED......... covered with all kind of filth, and the face.... a strange.... sort of build, framed by pointed ears......... and that HAIR....... spiked-------brown--------hair................

....That HAIR... it looked like the hair of someone he knew, that he looked up to as a model of what an honest, upright man should be. That HAIR made the disgusting, filthy, carnivorous creature staring him in the face, ready to devour him as monstrously as inhumanly able...the brown bangs made it look like someone who had looked after him, he who lived in a torn, unstable family. Yet, HOW could this bloodthirsty POKéMON even bear the SLIGHTEST resemblance to that well-meaning, good-natured person that had meant so much to him? 

There was nothing......except for the HAIR. The unmistakable spikey hair that rendered that venerable human so recognizable. It was then it hit him. 

_BROCK!!_

He shut his eyes, trying to hold back tears that were welling up. Rhyhorn beside the nonplussed boy growled in confusion, noticing a change in its trainer's expression. It was no longer of fear, but of absolute shock. He could only utter the name with great difficulty, filled with fear, and bewilderment...that...that CREATURE was BROCK, one of the few people he looked up to and admired for their good character. And here was the very same Brock, about to kill him and his Rhyhorn in cold blood. He couldn't stand this. Not at all. He COULDN'T stand it. It was impossible!! It couldn't be right! It WASN'T right!!! It seemed all out of proportion, not feasible...yet, it was grim reality. The boy's feelings were spiralling out of control, and he threw himself in front of Rhyhorn, yelling,

"NO!!!!! This CAN'T be HAPPENING...!!! Not to you...not to........." 

He choked on a tear. "...my bro.....!!!!!!!"

There was nothing. No hesitation, no snarl of realization, not even a gasp of shock. Nothing seemed to be different about the creature, other than the fact that it had suddenly silenced, and it wasn't moving.

Suddenly, there was the loud crack of burning wood being ripped from its foundation by gravity, and the sound of creaking as a dark shadow began to grow on top of the predator, the prey, and the small rock Pokémon.

The hideous creature slowly turned around, looking up towards the falling wall, which was slowly coming upon them.........

It then turned towards the boy, its eyes.... there was fear in them, now. No anger. No bloodlust. No hate. No imprisoned soul that couldn't grasp at reality.....

Just fear.

It suddenly threw a hand towards the boy, but instead of ripping the other's throat out, it grasped the child's arm, and tugged him to his feet.... like.... a big brother.

CRRRRRRRREEEAAAAAAAAAK!!!!!!!

The creature grasped the boy and lunged out of danger's way, grunting in exertion as it hit rolled over in the air, twirling and hitting the ground running.

And then it dove. And dashed. And lashed out, and dodged and rolled, all the while with the boy in tow.

But most of all, it was running, running like a bat out of hell.

A growing hell, that is. The dark fire was ignited with the excess wood to fuel it, and the glowing flames expanded in size, reducing the number of exits there were to the burning building. While the fire grew about them, the boy hastily calling back his Pokémon, his mind was in turmoil. Could it be that Brock had come to his senses? That the THING had a conscience? The vicious monster that had killed so ruthlessly now saving him? What was happening? Had everyone gone completely insane?? Thoughts whirled through his mind as the hideous mutant dashed through the burning corridors, with him, the boy, who was still trying to expel the smoke that had entered through his airways, under the creature's protection.

The creature itself was using every muscle in its body, every sane piece of tissue in his brain, to try to get OUT of this flaming maze. It would growl now and again, in futility, as it rushed towards what it thought were exits but what turned out to be barricades of smoke and burning wood. They were trapped.... there was no way out.... NO WAY OUT........

And suddenly..... the lightbulb went off.

_You came in through the ceiling. Go out through it._

The monster paused for a moment, standing in the main hall as it silently looked upwards, and nodded to itself. It then looked down at the boy and grit its teeth, wrenching him into the hold of both his arms, and securing his arms over its own shoulders.

And then....... it shot upwards, an energy field taking the blow as they escaped.... they rose out of the smoke, out into the clear night sky.... and then down towards the forest, crashing through the branches of a nearby tree and the creature's back taking a brutal pounding as it slid on the ground, and burning pain shot up through the scales until they finally came to a halt.

The creature's eyes stayed shut for at least two minutes. Its entire body was scratched. Its arms were burnt. Its face and HAIR were covered in sweat and the blood of OTHERS. Its chest was heaving up and down in pure exertion....

And then it opened those eyes, those blood-red, crimson, demonic eyes, and they stared up towards the shaking boy, who was still being clutched to his chest by his arms. The creature could only stare... what could it do? What could say? It was still struggling to grasp its bearings, and those eyes were so full of shock.... and fear.

But nevertheless, they were RED. Not any NORMAL color, such as blue or brown, but RED. Endless negative connotations came with RED. Those two narrowed pools of blood screamed HATRED. But HOW? How could THIS happen to..... Brock? Just a few years ago, such an agreeable... HUMAN, taking life's challenges with an open mind and always encouraging of others. But..... THIS... MONSTER was a bloodthirsty killer. And yet, he was saved by it. By IT. Saved by IT that was once HIM. It was too straining on his already tired mind to think anymore about it. Instead, he spoke, his words impeded by fits of coughing.

"Brock...how could you..DO that? Why'd you.....KILL your friends .....neighbors.....WHY??"

The.... creature..... continued to stare up at his sibling, in complete and utter shock.

Then, the actual WORDS registered in his mind.

The beast within had not been fully tamed, and Brock leapt to his feet, grabbing the boy by the shoulders with panicked, hysterical terror in his eyes. He was holding his arms so tightly that he was digging the claws in....

He then said, in a hoarse, inhuman growl that had not been used for human speech for hours which seemed like days:

".......Kill.....?"  
  
The growl impressed upon the boy's ears, and he winced at the hoarse, animal sound. THIS couldn't be his brother...... yet the horrible creature was Brock, and clutching onto his arms, making them bleed. 

"Quit it.....! You're not... going to kill me, are you?" 

The boy was terrified beyond imagination, his arms being held by the monstrous creature, that had killed so freely, and now recalled none of it. He was still young, and had little grasp of these inexplainable horrors that were gruesome reality. He only knew that Brock had somehow become a monster and had killed.....taken away the lives of....MURDERED those that were in the Pewter Museum of Science. But, he had no conception of WHY. Had he known why, there could be little doubt that the mental trauma would lead to emotional instability that would give way to insanity, at knowing the terrifying truth. But, this wasn't the case. He knew only the bare facts: no reasons behind them. People had DIED so swiftly at the.....CLAWS and TEETH of his relative..for seemingly NO reason at ALL. "How come you don't know what you did...!?" the boy demanded, his narrowed eyes hot and angry, that was meshed with the despairing feelings of one who is lost, and can't seem to find the answer to. He looked into the other's hideous face, yearning to know what drove his brother to this. WHAT had happened? WHY did it happen? Until he knew that, he could not rest. The smoke was overpowering: it consumed his lungs.....but he HAD to know.

"I killed........" the monster stared, the claws slowly relaxing their muscles in shock, until they tensed once more, harder this time. He snarled as he GRABBED the young boy and held him in the air, shaking him violently, with strength he didn't even know he had.

"I KILLED!!!!! WHO DID I KILL!?!??? WHY-----WHY DID-----HOW COULD I KNOW, TOMMY??!?! HOW THE _HELL_ COULD I POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT THE _HELL _HAPPENED?!??"

He paused a moment, and resumed the shaking, that was choking the smoke-infested boy, which was beyond even Brock's own control.......

"TELL ME, DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

But all the boy could do was choke at this point. Choke on sobs and tears.... and smoke. He couldn't breathe.... how come his brother couldn't see? Brock wanted to kill him..... Brock WANTED to see his brother DEAD...........

"TELL MEAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!" There was a final roar, heard throughout the bowels of Mount Moon and the depths of the Orange Sea, as Brock wrenched his poor, defenseless brother into the air, and SLAMMED him against the trunk of a tree.

There was a cry of the damned....... Then the sickening crunch of bone upon flesh and wood.

And then silence, only broken by the hard breathing.

There was suddenly a pause, and the sound of a shaky growl.

"Tommy....? Tommy.... I didn't mean it...."

The sound of a growl breaking into a whine.

"Tommy? Please.... answer.....

"............Tommy, please answer me... Tommy? Your head's so wet...... Tommy, I promise I'll make you some... some hot chocolate when we get home, okay?..... Just answer......."

The Pokémon of the forest began their normal sounds, oblivious to the dark figure that was slowly falling backwards, another, lighter figure grasped in its claws.

"_Please_, Tommy..... _Please......_

"God, _please_ answer, Tommy......... I can't...... I can't live if you don't...."

The Noctowls hooted, the Pidgeys nested, and the occasional Beedrill hummed against the soft sound of chokes and tears, as the creature began to rock back and forth, holding the lifeless body of a small boy, the vessel of hopes, dreams, achievements--all destroyed--against its scaled chest.__

_*~*~*_

"Check."

The haughty bishop moved majestically over the wooden board, stopping five squares away from its target. There was the king, vulnerable and defenseless... unless it was moved.

The raising of an eyebrow, scratching of a chin, and a small "Aaah...." of realization as the opponent smirked and skillfully brought his hand down upon his rook, smoothly replacing the bishop with his own piece.

"Hm. Your move."

The other was heavily miffed, and hastily moved his knight to capture the opponent's bishop, foolishly throwing it into the path of a pawn.  
  
The smirk turned into a slight grin, as the pawn jumped diagonally on top of the knight, and suddenly, it was defeated. However, in doing so, the second player had very foolishly left their queen for the taking----which was dangerously close to its king.

Because the pawn moved, the rook now had an open field to charge across and claim the enemy queen, in the process, blocking the king. Yet, the rook could easily be taken in a single move. This would only be used as a last resort, however, and instead of the castle, a lowly pawn moved into position to block the king.

"Check."

The opponent reeled slightly, angered that he could have left his essential pieces open so stupidly. There was the bit of a grumble as he scanned the board with his eyes. The only possible way out.... was to sacrifice his queen.

"........." Silently, and remorsefully, the opponent's head sank and he did as his instincts told him.

From the opposite end of the board, the second rook came charging up to the king, taking the queen in the process, and it as well as the surrounding pieces impeded any type of movement from the plastic monarch.

" 'Mate."

The opponent arched both eyebrows, took a sip of the lavender tea that was set beside the board, and very gracefully rose to his feet and outstretched a hand. "Excellent game."

The other took his opponent's hand and shook it in the most gentlemanly manner as possible, being gracious in victory. "Same to you."

The opponent nodded, pulled away, and opened the door of the conference room, calmly closing it behind him. He turned towards the interior of the rest of the large structure, making a meditative stance on the juxtaposition of the game to checkers, and pondering the philosophical aspects of chess and what kind of effects it could have on the lives of those involved in it. He assumed that it must have been quite a blow to his own pride that he lost so frequently, and that his opponent had surely been practicing rigorously during the recent lethargic times. Of course, seeing that he himself always lost and came back for more defeats only proved that his self-esteem was most probably lacking from behind his facade of semi-ignorance.

He took another sip of tea.

And then threw it on the ground, gave a yell of pure fury, and grabbed at his coarse yellow hair in turmoil.

"YYYYYYYYYEEEEAAAAAGHHH!!!!!!!!! HOW THE #*(@&#IN' HELL COULD _BARRET_ BEAT ME IN A #*&@ GAME OF #*&#@* AND #@^*@#& _CHESS?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?"_

A mahogany-crimson colored mix of a lupine and feline sat on his haunches, focusing his nonexistent right eye on the cursing pilot and snickered.

Outstretching his paws, the hind and fore ankles decorated with some kind of bangle, he loped over to the coarse pilot who obviously could not hide his true identity from the reader for long. The animal found much humor in this, and didn't hesitate to crack a joke. 

"I can't believe it either. Your intelligence quotients are about the same."

"Awwww, thanks a lot, dog-breath," Cid scowled, trudging over towards a nearby bench. He slumped into it, grabbed a cigarette from the box behind his ear, lit it, sighed, and commenced in drowining his sorrows in nicotine. "The damn BASTARD'S beaten me TEN &^#(* times already!!! TEN!!!!!"

Inhale, exhale, cough.

"If ya ask me, the man's gone NUTS!!! I mean---HOW TENSED ABOUT CHESS CAN SOMEONE #**@IN' _GET?!?!??!" _Continued the smoking man who was yelling at the top of his tar-coated lungs, his blue eyes red from practicing with himself in the dead of night, and his currently ungloved hands gripping the armrests of the bench for their dear lives.

A very--no, extremely--no, HEAVILY---no----LARGELY developed adult woman walked casually into the room, and looked at the heavy smoker. 

"Cid, I swear, you're going to die within ten years if you don't lay off on those!" Tifa chided, crossing her arms and glaring him in the eye. She was usually very mild-mannered and cool-headed, but with the disappearance--and sightings--of Sephiroth after they had supposedly destroyed him, as well as Shin-Ra, off the face of the planet, was troubling her somewhat. She was sure that AVALANCHE destroyed Sephiroth, and Rufus' fall during Diamond Weapon's attack confirmed that Shin-Ra was also gone.

However, there had been reports by Kalm Town citizens that Shin-Ra employees had appeared, and then disappeared just outside of Midgar. This was disconcerting. The Kalm Town residents were not known to be ones to hallucinate. And a few weeks later, Junon citizens had seen the same thing happening at where the stream flowed into the ocean. This was very disconcerting. Was Shin-Ra completely gone?? Or had they found... some.. way to survive? Whatever had happened, she knew it couldn't be good, and hence, was somewhat more tense these days. She usually didn't mind Cid's smoking at all. The fact that she had actually referred to it was a hint that all was not right in the world. 

After admonishing him, Tifa walked out of the room, and Red turned his muzzle towards the door, widening his eye.

"Nothing travels faster than a bad mood."

Cid seemed to be in his own little world, however.

"DAMMIT!!!! I _PUT_ THE FRIGGIN' QUEEN WHERE I FRIGGIN' WAS _SUPPOSED_ TO-----I FOLLOWED _ALL_ THE RULES-----HOW THE _HELL_ COULD THAT HALF-BIT, BEADY-EYED, MARSHMALLOW-BEAR, BIG, FAT SON OF A _WORMGUT_ BEAT ME?!?!?!?!??"

It seemed as if the world had gone completely insane as Cid jumped to his feet and a full orchestra began to play in the background. "ME!!!! CID----------HIIIIIIIIGHWIND!!!!!!!!"

The orchestra died down, and there was silence for a long moment, as crickets began to chirp and a paper, a tumbleweed, and a plastic bag blew across the floor simultaneously.

Cid blinked, and then hunched over in dejection, his eyes narrowed as he trudged off towards the sleeping quarters.

"Fiiiiiiine then, HAVE yer fun.... but remember.... I'll getcha.... Hah... HAH-HAH!!!!!"

With that, the temporarily-crazed pilot slammed the door to his room and locked it behind him.

As Red XIII watched in amusement, a tall, slim figure leaning against the wall arched an eyebrow.

"That was rather..... disturbing."

The voice was indifferent and stoic, undoubtedly caused by some past horror that was too abominable to bring into the light. The man's visage was a ghastly color, drained of most of its pigment.....he was a callous shell of a human, that had been cast down into the hell of inhumanity long before the two present monsters had been, their presence unknown to him. In fact, he acknowledged very little at all. Perhaps it was because his soul had been strangled on that very vivid day....but that was the past, and it was the present, and it was the future. There was no good future for him to look foward to. Not while knowing that the creatures inside of him were gnawing at his soul to be released. 

Red regarded the vampire-like man with a nonthreatening stare. 

"Disturbing? That's nothing! You should see him when Barret beats him at CHECKERS. He'll lock himself in his room for a _day."_

"Checkers?" Vincent arched his other eyebrow. "That is puzzling. Chess is widely regarded as being more challenging than.... checkers."

It was hard for the vampire-man to converse normally, and although he managed to only sound a bit archaic, his mode of speech was strangely monotonous and without emotion. Red didn't regard this emotionless being as odd. The fruits that the planet bore were of many shapes and sizes, and as long as they lived in the harmony and peace and the oneness of the planet, he felt there was no reason to lash. 

"That's why!" Red answered, laughing. "It's an easy game. Cid can't bear losing at something so simple!" He gave a toothy, canine grin. "_Especially_ to Barret!!"

"Really?" Vincent pursed his lips. He looked in the air a moment, as if thinking about a distant planet.......

Then, he turned back towards Red, a completely serious look on his face. "Tell him to buy Tetris. My observations of Yuffie and her.... 'GameChild' tell me that it is a _simple_ game."

The mysterious gunman then moved away like a gale within a storm, his red cloak flowing in the nonexistent wind behind him as he made his way to the cockpit.

The wolf/lion was left there to ponder...how "Tetris", which was an electronic box game, could be easier than checkers? Electronic box games, which did not exist in Cosmo Canyon, looked much harder than boards. This kind of thinking inclined him to scratch behind his ear, as this question was intriguing. Where did electronic boxes COME from, anyway? Had Bugenhagen been alive, maybe he would know the answer. But Red knew that he wasn't, and it saddened him. So he contented himself to look out the window, where there was a faint white light that shone, and then it abated rapidly. Red blinked his one eye, and stared harder, but the glow had vanished. 

However, there was little time to concentrate as a hurricane sped past at over a hundred miles an hour.

"WATCH OUT!!!!! COMIN' THROUGH!!!!!!!!!" Yuffie skidded to a halt next to Red and looked out the window of the Highwind, stretching out her neck. Since they weren't flying anywhere, she wasn't airsick; hence her good mood. "What're you lookin' at?!"

"Whatever it is, it's gone," Red answered, his pointed ears raising up and down, as he watched it intently. Suddenly, the flash of light appeared again, and Red jumped. "There it is!"

Out of the light came several figures garbed in blue, each carrying a medium-sized lump of dirt. Red placed his paws on the window, his eye widening. "Look!"

Yuffie's already-big eyes widened as well, as she put her nose to the window and looked downwards. "Hey.... is it just me.... or are those the Turks?!? And....." Her eyes widened to the max, and she jumped up and yelped in shock.

"TSENG?!!?!?"

The Turk in question looked as normal and as.... well, ALIVE as ever, in front of the small parade of blue suits. One hand was in his pocket and the other casually held around the holster of his gun. Luckily, the cloaking that Cid had recently installed on the Highwind enabled it to be almost completely undetectable to either infrared or the human eye. Tseng didn't seem to notice the huge, once-Shin-Ra ship as he marched in the clearing, his black eyes darting around a moment before he nodded and motioned for his subordinates to pull a box of weird-----lookin'--------rocks-----with------arms... out from the strange light.

The two members of AVALANCHE watched as the blue-uniformed men and woman unloaded their cargo, and Red pressed his black nose up to the window to get a better look. It was bewildering, but it was the truth. There was Tseng, in mint condition, alive and well. What was equally puzzling was the strange lumps of dirt.

"Tseng is alive? And.....what are they holding, Yuffie?"

Yuffie shook her head in a mix of shock and bewilderment. "How am I supposed to know?!?? I mean, it isn't materia------which means it CAN'T be THAT valuable....." She turned away, and then turned back, doing a double-take. "But..... I mean, that CAN'T be Tseng!!!! If it was, he'd be like KENNY or somethin'!!!! He was DEAD!!! Saw 'im myself!!!" She stated a bit proudly. "And he was DEAD, trust me!"

"Yes... but not anymore..." Red continued to watch the Shin-Ra Turks exit the white hole with their load, his mind in a disconnected whirl. 

The materia-hunter could only stare, blinking as one of the rocks stuck an arm out of the crate and Elena very furtively kicked it back in---injuring her foot in the process.

"Wow... are those.... dirtballs..... ALIVE?!?" Yuffie managed to cease her gaping for a moment, long enough to blink at Red quizically. "Shouldn't we call the others over?"

Meanwhile, Elena was hopping around on one foot in pain. "OOOOOWWWW!!!! OWOWOWOWOWOWOWW!!!!! TSSSEEEENG!!!!!" She whined, looking towards the higher-ranking Turk in front of her. "Whyyy can't we use those----uh-----Powkeybawl thingies INSTEAD?!??! My foot hurts!!!!"

Tseng's well-known glare was enough of an answer for anyone , and Elena hung her head, narrowing her eyes as she continued to hop around and mutter half-coherent curses.

The slightly comical scene passed with no audience save for the other two Turks, the two AVALANCHE spies, and the lumps of dirt that were contained in the crates. 

Yuffie shook her head at who she considered to be a "tomboy-wannabe" and turned back to Red. "Wellllll....?"

"Cloud and the others might want to take a look at this," Red seconded, pulling himself away from the fogged window and loped out of the room, to tell the others of what he and Yuffie had seen.

Red entered the adjoining area where Cloud was cleaning up the mess of tea and china that Cid had caused when he threw a fit over the lost chess game. He bounded towards him and panted,

"The Turks are outside!" 

"What do they want? There's no Shin-Ra to work for," The blonde, heavy-hair-gel-addict pointed out, dropping the tea-drenched rag.

"It looks like that's not the case. The Turks are outside, Cloud...and..." The dog gave a hint of a whine as his tail swished behind him, and answered, "Tseng's with them."

Cloud gaped and his Mako-infused eyes widened, completely nonplussed. 

"But--Sephiroth killed him!"

"IMPALED him!!!" Yuffie unnecessarily added, nodding.

"You know that as well as I do. But he's.... back...!"

Tifa burst in on the conversation, coming in from the cockpit, her gloved hands on her hips.

"If Tseng's back, maybe the rest of Shin-Ra are, too!"

"We'd better find out!" Cloud decided, and grabbed his Ultimate Weapon, and went off to find Cid, Vincent, Barret, and Cait Sith 2.

*~*~*

Almost all of the Geodudes were roused from their inactivity from Elena's loud upset, and Reno tried to calm her down in the only way he knew: "Hey, 'Lena, SHUT UP!"

Rude stood silent as usual, in his hands three crates of the cargo, that barely reached over his hairless head. He differed from his fellow Turks in innumerable ways, yet somehow they could coexist without too much mishap.

Reno set down his crate and eyed Tseng.

"What're we 'gonna do with this junk anyway?"

Tseng looked behind him and gave another growl. "Bring them back to storage.... sell them off on the black market, I think the President said." He turned away. "I'm not quite sure."

"You're not SURE!??!?!?!" Elena yelled at the top of her lungs. "Then why're we doing this ANYWAY!??!?! I don't GET IT!!!!!!!"

"Yeah! Like 'Lena said, why in hell are we luggin' these big dirtballs---"

As if offended by the term, two rocky arms crashed through the crate, and whatever was inside it was growling incoherently. Reno was startled, and dropped it, the box shattering and releasing a rounded, stone with two arms. "Damn!"

Tseng grit his teeth and held his head in his hand. "Sometimes.... I think you three.... are just......" He shook it and shut his eyes for a moment. "Just..... PICK UP THE BOX.... so we can take it to WHEREVER the President needs us to."

"Yeah, sir," Reno answered semi-politely, knowing that Tseng was not the man to get on the wrong side of. He lifted up the broken box, and then grabbed the small rocky creature by the arms. But the stone gave off a loud cry of fear, and threw Reno's light frame onto the ground. "OW!! DAMN IT!"

Rude heaved an exasperated sigh, but did not open his mouth as he took the belligerent rock and held it, Reno scowling at the other's success as he picked himself up off the dusty ground.

"Hmph!!!!" Elena turned up her nose as she grabbed the smallest box. "I swear, the Prez' doesn't CARE that he's wasting his BEST agents on doing GRUNT WORK!!!! UGH!!! How.... DEGRADING!!!!!!"

Tseng actually agreed this time. "Yes..... but we might as well do as we are told." He picked up one of the larger boxes and marched on ahead. "Just remember... it could be worse. At least we're not bouncing people out of a party......"

"HAH!!! I'd enjoy THAT more than THIS junk!!!!" Elena cried, catching up with him. "I mean, at least we'd actually be using some TURK skills... but right now... we're doin' SOLDIER work!!!! No---LESS than SOLDIER work!!!!"

"Yeah! 'Lena's right! What're we doin' this for? How come the SOLDIERs can't do this? Ain't there more important stuff to do than haul a bunch of---"

"............"

"Huh? What'd ya say, Rude?"

Rude was silent again, his eyes unmoving behind his thick, opaque sunglasses, and the Geodude in his grasp struggling for control. It didn't know why it was there, being relocated from the rugged mountains of its homeworld, but the Turks could care less about the situation of the Pokémon. They were merely carrying out orders, as they had been trained to do dozens of times over.

The twilight of Gaia manifested itself as they neared the ruined metropolis, oblivious to the presence of a certain snowstorm on their trail....

*~*~*

**Heh-heh... Ironically, AVALANCHE seems to be the comic relief of the fic. ^_^;;; Rather ironic, eh? Anyway, tell us whatcha think!!! Was everyone OOC? Did you think that the chess players were Sephiroth and his MOTHER??!? Are you speculating that perhaps gerbils are behind EVERYTHING?!?!**

**If you did.... well.... you've got problems. We like you. :)**

**TO BE CONTINUED.........**


	8. Oh, How the Rockets Burn

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

_H-hello?_

Static.

_T-Team R-rocket...... H-k-k-Q?_

Static.

_This is Agent Miyamoto! Currently on the t-track of-----_

The sound of some kind of falling debris.

_--Argh! Did you get that? I am currently on the track of Mew, as has been ordered, Madame Boss!_

Sounds of whistling wind.

_However.... I have not been having much luck.... I have spottted it, however! I am on its trail! I will not fail you, Madame!!!!_

A crack of thunder.

_Madame....? Hello.....?_

_Is there.... anyone....?_

Another boom; a yell.

_An avalanche--------------MUSASHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

--Excerpt from recording found in Team Rocket database. Date unknown. Location unknown; lost from the Viridian City Police Archives in a mild Y2K Mix-up.

*~*~*

**Chapter 8: **Oh, How the Rockets Burn

*~*~*

The sky above displayed every shade of ebony, casting lengthening umbrage against the mediocre buildings of Viridian City and the surrounding land. Pale lights emitted from the buildings in the city, but it was not enough to illuminate the immediate area, leaving the path leading to Route 1 so dark that one could not see a foot in front of their face.

And this was the route that three certain Team Rocket members walked. All three were ecstatic, and their bright moods could not be hidden by the complete darkness. What could send their spirits soaring to such dizzying heights?

They had gotten paid.

"Aaaaaaaaah........" Sighed a much-contented James. There were stars in his eyes as he waddled along , the precious paper clutched to his chest. "Two YEARS of dreams.... all granted in two SECONDS!!!!" He said, his voice steadily rising until he was giggling like a school girl. "Heehee... HEEHEE.... HEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHE!!!!!!!!"

"Stoppit, Jimmy-boy," Meowth ceased his smiling for a moment to sweatdrop at the aforementioned Rocket. "You're scarin' us."

Jessie was in too high of spirits to notice that her partner was riding the clouds of over-elation, since her smile was crossing the entire length of her face in one gigantic flipped crescent moon. There was NOTHING that could make her glum at this point, neither any of her partners. Yes, nothing at all could POSSIBLY destroy this WONDERFUL mood, as the trio marched along, visions of snowgasboards, Growlithe toys, and round, shiny things dancing through their heads. NOTHING in Hell or in Heaven could every destroy the mood of pure jubilation, of triumph, satisfaction, accomplishment, and happiness, as James twirled around on a foot, glancing for a moment back towards Viridian forest before coming to a halt.

He smiled for a moment, sighing, until he suddenly froze. Jessie and Meowth were still plodding on ahead, laughing to themselves as James put a finger up, a few feet behind them.

"Erm..... guys?"

"Yeah? What is it, James?"

Jessie turned towards her partner, not shaken from her feeling of ecstasy. She eyed her partner expectantly, and the other returned a thoughtful glance. Though James wasn't the most observant person when it came to most things, his eyes usually did not lie.

"......I think the HQ's being blown up."

There was a moment of profound silence, in which all that everyone did was blink.

And then a volcano erupted, seething burning lava of a single word.

"WHAT?!?!!"

And then then the lava of tongues flowed.  
"....WHAT DA _MMMMEEEEOOWWTHH_ ARE YA _TALKIN'_ ABOUT?!?!?" Meowth yelled angrily, swiping James across the face. "It ain't FUNNY ta joke like that!!!!"

"But I'm noooooooooot!!!!!" James whined, rubbing the scratch marks that Meowth had caused. He put up a finger and pointed it towards Viridian Forest. "Look!!!!"

Billowing ebony smoke climbed throughout the night sky, darkening the horizon even more so than it had been without the toxic gases to engulf it. Everyone's elated mood was shattered in that instant, at the sight of the headquarters in flames... AGAIN. Who... would DARE try to destroy the Team Rocket HQ once more? The acrid odor of burning wood, concrete, and FLESH reached their noses.....the very real horror of destruction was upon them.

"Yikes," Meowth uttered in such a high squeak that he was barely audible.

"J-Jess...." James gulped, his eyes wide with fear. "Why does it smell... uh.... like a bad barbeque?"

"I--don't know, James!"

"People didn't.... DIE when dat..... Mewtwo escaped, did dey?" Meowth continued to stare at the horrific spectacle.

"We didn't see anyone---that...died!!" Jessie answered, losing her confidence for a long duration. "We'd better go see!"

With that, she charged off ahead, taking the lead as was inbred in her to do. Yet, the portentous sight made her want to turn back..there was something strange about all of this...

"EEEEEEEE!!!!! JESS, JESS!!! Wait up for MEEEE!!!!" James cried, speeding off after her, and Meowth bringing up the rear, leaving a trail of dust across the ground, and not nearly as anxious to find out what was going on.

"Jess, are ya SURE dis is da smart 'ting ta do? We's GOT our paycheck!!!"

"Of course I'm sure, Meowth!! And the------paycheck can WAIT!!!!!" Jessie shot back, and it was evident that there was definitely something wrong....to make her not worried about MONEY? Money that they worked very hard to dishonestly earn?

James froze a moment, gaping at Jessie as she ran. The only reason that he resumed his running was because Meowth jumped up, grabbed his wrist, and began to PULL him.

"If we're gonna go dere, we might as well do it wit' speed, so START RUNNIN' ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

James stumbled forward and then nodded. "Right."

They were soon all dashing towards the distant, blazing inferno.

*~*~*

Ash stared at the wall in front of him. That's all he really COULD do. He was still in shock from the events from---what was it? A day? An hour? A minute ago? Time was hard to tell in this gruddy, grimy hell, as it seemed to focus all its energy on pressing down on people, on their minds......

And most of all, he was feeling guilty. Guilty about not running from Team Rocket when BROCK had told him to. Why was he so DUMB? Why was he so incredibly stupid.......?

Ash groaned, pulling his knees to his chest and laying his head down in them.

Misty, on the other hand, had cried herself to sleep. She was devastated when Brock was taken away. What did Team Rocket WANT with him? What good was he to them...as a...monster? This was all that occupied her dreams, her turbulent nightmares, that replayed the horrors of the day that had passed. 

There was even more silence, as if Ash and Misty were avoiding speech, avoiding talking about the day....

But of course, one could always trust Ash to say SOMETHING.

"Wonder whose voice that was....?" It was more to himself than anyone else, but he said it in a normal tone of voice, which temporarily sparked Misty's curiosity.

"Wha-?" Misty awoke, her drowsy eyelids, stained with tears, lifting. "What voice, Ash?"   
She rolled over on her side, that was sore and weak from being on one position for so long. Somewhere, a drip of water hit the grimy floor.

"Oh," Ash seemed a little startled, and then sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. "I dunno. Who was up there? It was, Brock, Ivy...." (He shuddered at that.) "...and someone else, too."

He paused, and got that familiar, dumbfounded look. "I think so, anyway."

"It was Team Rocket's boss," Misty answered in pure rage, that did not abate as she went on to say: "Funny, I don't hear them anymore."

"Yeah... didn't they come back?" Ash blinked. He had been more observant than usual, due to the lack of things to do in the cell. He shuddered. "What if they're doing more experiments on Brock? And... how do YOU know it's the Team Rocket leader? We've never seen 'im before.... Right?"

"I saw him. You didn't?" she asked in suprise, her mind focusing on a not-so-distant memory. It was so clear: all of hell's evils in one large man, with no regard for misunderstood Pokémon. Then she remembered Brock. "No...he can't take anymore......oh, GOD...what if they are, Ash?!" she grabbed the black-haired boy in terror. "What if they put him through more...PAIN?! What if--?!"

She stopped, her face drenched in sweat at the horrific possibilites.

"Well, I don't hear any yelling," Ash stated the obvious. "But then again.... didn't she say something like 'sound panes' or something? Maybe we just can't hear it....." He then answered her first question. "And I don't think I saw him.... You mean----the guy who was tryin' to get Mewtwo?"

He blinked.

"Brock's Onix was in the way."

Misty nodded, remembering Ash take Mewtwo to the pure waters before the despicable human could enter his line of vision. She gave Ash a hard stare.

"Lucky you didn't see him."

And her mind wandered back to Brock, and her eyes welled up again, tears quickly collecting into a puddle on the slimy floor. Her blue eyes wandered to the cell opposite them....its vacancy was so pronounced.

"Huh. Maybe that's why the voice is so familiar....." Ash thought out loud, nodding to himself. There couldn't be any other explanation. However, even as Misty began to cry once more, something was troubling his mind.... something.... faint, but firm at the same time.... He suddenly remembered something completely off topic. Something from second grade. The teacher had written on the white board, "What did you do yesterday?"

And he remembered what he had written, in his wide-ruled, mass-produced school journal.

"Yestirday i wennt too the moveys with my daddy then wie gat ece krem and i got chocolat annd my daddy got vanela cus vanela is thu coler of his favrat pokemun."

Ash blinked. How-----WHY had he remembered THAT out of all things? Ah, well.... he sighed, looking up.

There were more important things afoot.

Ash saw Misty crying again, and moved over towards her. "It's okay, Misty!!! We'll find Brock!!!!" He paused, and then shot himself in the foot. "And if we can't turn him back..... well, I can train him myself!"

Her expression was one of complete hopeless that swiftly turned into anger. The red hot anger derived from despair of not being able to help a loved one.

_"TRAIN_ HIM?!! YOU CAN'T TRAIN HIM, YOU-----!!!!"

Misty lunged and grabbed his collar, shaking him violently, and was about to take it one step further when an unearthly roar rumbled overhead. "Wha--? Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Ash cringed, Misty's enraged face and voice blocking out any sense of sight or hearing.

A deafening crash was heard, followed by terrified human screams and wails, and the sound of something being ignited...

The realization came fast and furious. The building above was on FIRE.

Ash could smell something......

"Hey!!!" He yelled in realization, his eyes brightening. "Are they making Chili Pot Pie??!"

"No, genius!!!" Misty screamed at Ash, her face shading red. "There's a FIRE!!"  
The orange-haired girl ran up to the cell, trying to slam the door open. "We've got to get out of here!!!" she screamed in panic.

As Ash was roughly discarded, he crashed on the floor, and rubbed the back of his head rather tenderly.....

BOOM.

He blinked. "Didja feel that?"

BOOM.

He stumbled to his feet, and fell back once more, crying out. It seemed as if Misty had sprained his ankle.

"Feel what?" Misty asked, roughly trying to pull Ash up to his feet, not knowing the slight damage she caused. The impending noise was heard again, and this time she was aware. "What's happening?!"

"AAAAGHH!!!!" Ash cried, gritting his teeth as he slammed into the floor once more. "You hurt me or somethin'!!!!!" He screamed at Misty, caught up in the panic of the moment.

"Aghh! Sorry, Ash," Misty apologized hurriedly, and was a bit more gentle this time, supporting him as she tried to pick him up.

Ash nodded, and leaned against the wall, panting heavily. "How.... are we gonna GET OUTTA HERE?!? We'd need a HUGE Pokémon to break those bars----like with TEETH and CLAWS and HORNS, and-----"

His prayers to heaven were answered by hell.

From outside of the cell, there was a heavy, slow, breathing, as the darkness seemed to grow, and to meld with the darkness that was already there. At first Misty thought it was only a shadow from one of the other objects in the corridor, but that assumption was proved wrong... VERY wrong, as blood crimson eyes snapped open, the two raging pits of perpetual hell emanating a single hue of red.

Without warning, the bars cracked, the pieces of metal being hurled elsewhere, that startled the two trainers. The monstrous jaws of the creature opened, and the long, reptillian tongue dripped acidic saliva, that ripped pores into the floor that hissed as it was corroded by the fluids. Misty looked up in horror at the horn projecting out of the monster's head, like that of a Nidoking, but ten times more deadly.

The hideous animal moved foward, the entire cell rumbling as a deafening roar tore from the abomination's vocal cords, sending Misty and Ash into stark terror. The deadly creature, whose blood-colored eyes were filled with the lust for death and destruction, as that is what it existed for, hurled itself at the weaker one, the boy, and leaned its jaws towards the terrified trainer, ready to tear him limb from limb.

Ash couldn't move. He could run. He couldn't hide. He couldn't yell, or scream, or fight back.....

He was completely paralyzed as the dinosaur-like, reptilian head came straight at him, the tongue dripping with that horrible saliva, that DISGUSTING, REVOLTING drool.... Was this one of Ivy's CREATIONS? It could not have POSSIBLY, EVER been human. It was a monstrosity, an abomination beyond words alone...

Not that Ash HAD any words at the moment. All he could do was stare, stare with his blackish, amber eyes into those of the horrific THING, those flaming pits of HELL that seemed to writhe in some kind of inner turmoil.... Strange... they looked kind of like Brock's......

And he just stared. Time seemed to be drawn out for an eternity, as he gazed into the orbs of the creature, the CREATURE that did not belong on the surface of EARTH..........

And yet, it WAS on Earth. And it was there, now, about to destroy and devour the terrified boy. Misty couldn't even scream: the monster exceeded all forms of nightmarish evils: she was entirely frozen. They could only sit in stark fear, waiting for death to come. 

But it didn't.

The terrifying monter let out a long, low, growl. For a moment, its eyes lost their lethal glow, and it retreated slowly. just as a Dan'in appeared at the end of the corrdior.

"What the hell is going on in---?"

The red glow of fury engulfed the creature's eyes again, and it lunged, charging towards the Rocket, that was not fast enough to flee, and a scream of undeserved death punctuated the air as the monster plunged its protruding fangs into the other's chest, a fountain of blood shooting onto the abomination's snout. The heart burst as the creature chewed apart the innards, smashing the bones, the muscles, the marrow, all while the poor Rocket was screaming in absolute pain as he was being eaten ALIVE. There was nothing left save for a ripped cap. Misty could only stare, knowing... That could have been Ash. But it wasn't. Ash was still with her, not exactly safe, but..... the monster was gone. It had ascended to the upper levels, and the horrifying sounds of death came upon her ears again. She turned to Ash resolutely and urged, "Lets get out of here!!! NOW!!"

Ash was still in shock, and all he could do was stare at the wall on the opposite side of the cell. He.... had been.... spared by that.... THING...... but why? Why had the THING been so merciful to him.... and done such a......... MENTALLY-SCARRING-PSYCHOTIC THING to the ROCKET?!?! It didn't make any sense.........

"Huh?" Ash was brought back to reality by Misty's yelling, and blinked, finally nodding. "Good idea. I don't know what would happen if it came BACK........"

And so, Ash, supported by Misty, began to limp the hell out of there.

*~*~*

Just outside the burning complex that was-------HAD been------Team Rocket Headquarters, a purple-haired woman with half-closed eyes was walking away from a tower of flames. A look of pure serenity and peace was gracing her face.

"Rufus? Yes. It has been done."

A pause. A smile.

"_All_ of it."

*~*~*

Ah.....sleep. Tranquil, placid, rest. No human could live without it. Not even Butch. He was resting on the bunk in his quarters, no dreams, just deep rest, relaxed and still. His chest rose up and down, silently, as he drifted on a pillowy cloud. Butch was known for his heavy sleeping, (not to mention his HORRENDOUS snoring), as could be told by anyone who worked close with him.

Like Cassidy.

Who was currently breaking the door down.

"DAMMIT, BUUUUUUTCH!!!!!!!!!!!! THE HQ'S ON FIRE, AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS WALLOW IN YOUR LITTLE DREAM LAND?!??!?!? GET UP!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!"

It took Butch a full minute to wake up. The green-haired Rocket fell out of bed, crawling towards the door. It would have been a laughable sight, hadn't the situation been so dire.

"Huh? Fihe? Whehe?"

His dark brown eyes shot open. "You didn't tell me befohe!" 

He clamped his fist on the doorknob and shoved it open, joining Cassidy in the hall, and the grisly sight that greeted them. "What... the??"

Rockets---Grunts, Executives, Assassins, Hitmen, Combat Units, Paper-Pushers---the like---were ALL running to-and-fro through the hallway, like ants when their hive has been flooded. They were trampling over half-dead bodies, some dead from the fire, some from the smoke... and some.... from something else.

"WHAT DO YOU _MEAN _'I DIDN'T _TELL_ YOU BEFORE'?!??!" Cassidy grabbed Butch's collar and shook him, bringing him out of the shocked trance. "THE MONSTER PASSED RIGHT THROUGH HERE!!!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!!!! THEN, WHEN I CAME, YOU WOULDN'T ANSWER, SO I THOUGHT YOU'D _SUFFOCATED!!!!_ AND NOW, YOU SAY THAT YOU DIDN'T EVEN _NOTICE??!?!?!?"_

She obviously was on the verge of hysterics.

"No, guess I didn't, Cass..." The other answered calmly, but filled with complete shock..that all of THIS could have taken place while he slept. He was even more shocked that Cassidy came to alert him. They were partners, and he always thought that was the extent of their relationship: just partners. If one was in trouble, let the other one fend for himself. Yet, Cassidy HAD come to warn him, albeit rashly, but nevertheless, came to warn him of the terrible danger.

But he didn't show his relief. There was no time. 

And there wasn't any time for any more shouting either, as a familiar voice suddenly yelled: "WAAAAAAATCH OUUUUUUUTT!!!!!!!!" And the thin form of a blue-haired man crashed into Cassidy, who fell onto the ground with a loud THUMP.

Meowth was second to come running, but he shrank away as he saw the two rivals. "Dis ain't good."

Jessie followed, her eyes heating up as she saw Cassidy, her object of hatred, and Butch saw his, who was on TOP of his PARTNER. Meowth's prediction was fulfilled when Jessie sprang up, her dark blue eyes boring into the other's violet.

"Rghhh...what are you doing here, Cassidy?! I thought you were still in jail!!!"

"GET_OFF_CASS!" Butch yelled, glaring down at the blue-haired Rocket.

"Huh?" James blinked downward, and gave out a yelp as he leapt backwards, crashing into one of the fleeing Rockets, who promptly shoved him away and continued to run.

"UGH!!!! I probably have LICE or something, now!!!" Cassidy snarled in disgust as she rose to her feet, indifferent to Jessie's assumption. She then smirked at her rival, crossing her arms as James was shoved to-and-fro in the crowd behind them. 

"Well, well, well!!! I'm surprised to see that _you_ guys actually came in a time of Team Rocket need! Hmph!" The grin widened. "Then again, I'd bet my life savings that you idiots were just summoned by the Boss for news of your forced retirement... and now, you're too stupid to find a way OUT of the HQ!!! Hah-hah-HAAA!" She laughed, putting a hand to her mouth.

Jessie growled, her visage a glow of ire. "How dare you?! If WE'RE too stupid to find a way out, then why are YOU still here?!" she retaliated, a smug smile appearing on her face.

"Uhhhh... ahh... err...." Cassidy's smug demeanor suddenly fell, as she blinked at the other. Her facial muscles tensed once more, as she pointed an accusing finger at Butch. "It's because I was BUSY WAKING _HIM_ UP, YOU PRISSY-BEAUTY-SCHOOL-DROPOUT!!!!!"

"Heeeeyyy!!!!" James whined in the background, still being shoved and unnoticed. "It's called 'POKÉMON TECH!!!!!'"

"Whatevuh," Butch grunted as he glared down at James. Jessie was about to retort when a familiar blonde-haired girl ran up to them, an authoritative, yet flighty air about her.

"Hey, you! Go find the boss!"

"Domino----!!!!!" James finally managed to pull himself out of the foray, and he landed on a heap on the floor. "Where'd you--?!??!?"

Cassidy was dumbfounded once more, and being on better terms with the top agent than Jessie and James were, ventured a question. "The Boss?" Her brow furrowed, and she thought to herself in a rather panicked manner: _He isn't HERE?!? What if he's DEAD??!? Team Rocket can't go ON without a leader!!! I mean, he doesn't have any KIDS, right? Heh-heh.... Little Bosses running around? THAT'D be chaos. And even then.... DOMINO'D probably want to take power.... HAH!!! I'll bet she STARTED the fire........... I mean, no one HAS seen him since a few hours ago....._

However, this is what she said out loud, in an indignant tone of voice: "Hmph! Why don't _you_ go find him??! _You're_ 009!!! Not us!!!"

"_I_ already looked, and if you want to keep your crummy position in this organization, you better look too!" the high-ranking Rocket ordered, smirking at Butch and Cassidy, then shifting her gaze towards Jessie, James, and Meowth. "That goes for you, too, _losers!"_

Before Jessie, James, or Meowth could protest, a mournful yowl was heard above the sheer chaos, and a significantly charred feline dragged itself in, its soft, fine, and Fancy-Feast-addicted tongue hanging from its jaws.

As Domino disappeared off to God knew where, James blinked towards the cat.

"Say.... isn't that-----?!"

"The Boss' Persian!!!" Meowth exclaimed, hesitantly walking towards the feline that intimidated him so much. "What happened, _meeeoowwth?"_

As they talked, the flames grew throughout the building, but no one noticed. They were attacking the very foundation of the structure. It wouldn't be long before it crumbled.....

"Mrrrrreoowwwwwwww....." _Gone...gone...gone... _The ivory cat limped foward, collapsing on corpse--strung floor, gasping for air. It was pitiful to seeit this way, for once experiencing the danger life had to offer.

The Rocket members could only stare in shock at the cat.... everyone, that is, except for James, who was turning his head around in a rather bewildered manner.

"Say...." he blinked. "What's that loud thumping noise?"

Everyone ignored him.

"What's gone?!" Meowth made a step towards the fellow feline. "Meeeoowwwth!!! What's wrong with ya?!? Usually you're tryin' to swipe at me or somethin'!!!"

"Mreowwwww......" The Persian looked at Meowth sadly, one whom it would usually look upon with condescension and disgust at the other's position in life, but not this time. This time it was overcome with sadness, sadness of losing a great and good friend for an unknown and doubtful amount of time, and it could only slump downwards, its long tail curling under it. Jessie widened her eyes.

The thump was heard a second time, louder.

"It's.... Whatever it is, it's getting closer...." James gulped, still being ignored by the rest of the strange congregation.

"C'mon!!!! Speak ta me, pal!!!" Meowth said urgently at seeing a fellow feline in such turmoil--even if it WAS "dat pesky Persian". "What's gone??! Da Boss?!? Do ya know where he is?! We need ta find 'im or else Domino'll have us by da _tails!!!"_

Mreowwwww....." _Here..... the master's........ here...... _The Persian gave a long, loud screech of despair, the cause of which was unknown, as it fell into unconsciousness. 

"Huh?! Here!??!" Meowth blinked, dumbfounded. It took a second for him to realize that the Persian had gone off into dreamland. "H-HEY!!! Ya can't----!!!!"

"JESSIE........." The thumps seemed to be coming around the corner, and as his eyes darted around, James realized that the hallway.... was suddenly deserted. "Jessie, we NEED......" He grabbed her arm and began to back away from the dreadful sound. "....TO GET OUT OF HERE......"

"I KNOW that, James!! But BLONDIE here won't get out of the way!!" she answered angrily, glaring her petty rival in the face. Butch looked around. 

"I heah something.....Cass, lets stop and cleah out. Thehe's something coming."

"It's the MONSTER that Bonnie was talking about!!!!!" Cassidy suddenly cried, grabbing onto Butch's arm as well. "She said it ate her partner----Clyde---in one GULP!!!!!!" She then yelled out and began running in the opposite direction. "LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!!!!!!!!!!"

"Y-yeah!!!!!"James agreed with one of their rivals for once, and HE dragged JESSIE away, giving out a yelp of fear as he dashed alongside Cassidy, both teams in a race for the exit.

"H-HEY!!!!!! You guys are forgettin' somethin'!!!! Meowth yelled, running after them. "What about ME-OWTH?!?!"

But then, he looked back, and saw the Persian... so helpless.... so pitiful..... so soft to the dangers of life.....

"Awww, I can't leave a fellow feline in need!" Meowth got into one of his preachy moods and stumbled over towards the cat. "C'mon!!! C'mon, geddap!!! I don't wanna die either!!!!!"

After two moments of no response, Meowth got aggressive again.

"YEEEAAARRGHH!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!" He took his claws and slashed the cat's face, probably a bit harder than he needed to.

"MREOOOWWW!!!" the cat screeched as it sprang back into consciousness, and opening its eyes, it saw the Meowth, hazy in front of it. Shakily, it got to its paws, slipping on its hind legs, and falling to the floor. And all the while, the monster, now drenched in its victims' crimson blood, trudged into view behind them.

Meowth's eyes widened. There was... a shadow.... hanging over them..... he slowly, ever so slowly turned around, and by the time he had done a one-eighty, he was sweating with immense fear, and pulling down the urge to suddenly scream at the top of his lungs.

_Maybe if I don't move, it won't see me. _He thought, staying completely still. _Like in that dinosaur movie!_

That trick didn't work, and it definitely saw him, and it roared in wild anger, lunging for the tiny, round cat, but missed, as it was partially blinded by the red blood dripping down its eyes in wide streaks. Persian pulled itself toward the creature, and looked up contently, as if HAPPY to see this...... THING.

"AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!" Finding that he wasn't better off if he was silent anyway, Meowth erupted in a stream of yells, ending with an "OOMF!" as he leapt and landed behind a stray desk that had been left in the hall for some reason or another during the recent panic. "Ah------!!!! PERSIAN!!!!!" He then uttered in a loud whisper, staring and wondering WHAT Persian had been smoking lately.

"Mreowwwww.....Mreowwwww!" _Mas---Ahhhhh!_ The cat's flow of thought was cut off when three cruel claws gouged out one side of its furry face, and it flumped over on the floor, bleeding profusely.

"Mas----MASTER?!?!??!" Meowth's eyes were practically boggling out of their sockets, as he continued to stare at the deranged, insane, and utterly ludicrous cat.

"Mreeeowwwww..." it meowed in pain, feeling its bloodied eye fall to the ground, and winced as it was crushed under the claws of the monster, that roared again, its repulsive drool spilling out of its maw. It neared, opening its jaws for the kill, but Persian didn't budge. "Mreowwwww.." _Master......!_

Meowth now stared at the repulsive, revolting beast..... it had RIPPED_PERSIAN'S_EYE_OUT......... But..... there WAS something INEXPLICABLY familiar about it, something that made shivers go down Meowth's spine, caused his fur to stand on end, and turned his Pokémon blood to ice in his veins.

"Boss?"

The monstrous being didn't answer. It couldn't. It only responded to its own master, either that, or two words. Two words that could open its eyes, or close them, that could make it rise into awareness, or take its conscience away.

"Guess..... it ain't him....." Meowth chuckled nervously, backing away. "Eh-heh... Eh-heh...... Yeah.... I'd------better-------go......."

"Mreowww.....MReeowww!!" _No...it IS him! It IS the master! _Persian insisted, covering up the bloody socket with his paw, and staggered backwards. The creature fixated its blood-red eyes onto the larger cat, and a ripping snarl exploded into a roar, and it lunged its head for the final, decisive blow......

Persian cowered, meowing softly, refusing to attack the aggressor. Hopeless thoughts flitted through its mind.

"Mreow...Mreoow!!!" _Master......_

The jaws opened.

_...Don't....._

The hideous tongue grasped Persian by the neck.

_.....you....._

Persian was dragged into the monster's disgusting mouth.

_REMEMBER _ME?

There was an arubt stillness, as the creature suddenly froze, its muscles tensing as a flash of something or other lit up its vermilion eyes. They lost their hue for a moment, turning a human white, with beady, black pupils, until they went back to a "normal", redder, and somehow calmer hue. It then slowly looked downwards, dread of a waking nightmare in those hellish orbs, and giving a choked yelp, expelled Persian, who was slammed against the bloodwashed wall, covered with the revolting saliva, that somehow failed to corrode its flesh, but ate through its fur. The monster shut its scaled lids for a moment and gave out a terrible roar, not of anger... but one of PAIN, as if it had done something it horribly regretted...... It gripped its deformed head in agony, and charged towards Persian, lifting the battered cat up, and turned it over in its clawed hands rather clumsily, in an uncharacteristically panicked manner, trying to determine if it was still alive.

There was a moment of silence.

_.................................No............................................_

_...........Per............sian.............................No........................._

Another long minute that stretched out for an eternity.

The Persian suddenly coughed, and opened its remaining, clouded eye. It blinked for a moment, and unexpectedly began to purr.

"Mreeeeeeeeeowww........" _Master..........._

The monster would have smiled if its mind hadn't been weighted down with other matters.

After setting the cat down and breathing a heavy sigh of relief, it took on a more serious gaze, and turned towards Meowth, stalking towards the mentally traumatized feline as red blood dripped down its ebony face.

"DON'T HURT ME!!!!! I DON'T WANNA DIIIIIEEEE!!!! AAHHHHH!!!!! MOOOOMMMMYYYY!!!!!!" Meowth was screaming in a high-pitched yowl, in hysterics as he covered his head with his small paws and curled into a ball on the floor, shrinking down into the tiniest possible size. "I NEVER EVEN GOT TA SEE DA LAST EPISODE OF SURVIVOR!!!!!!!!!! WAAHHHH!!!!!"

The creature turned its reptillian head to one side as if in confusion, and picked the small cat up with its free hand, looking at it nonthreateningly, if that was even POSSIBLE. In fact, the look seemed to be more of exasperation than anything else, and its glance was..... almost..... condescending......?

"AAAAAAHHH!!!! WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! WAaaaahhhh....!!!!!!!! Waaaahhh....." Meowth slowly, slowly, _SLOWLY_ calmed down, as he slowly raised his eyes towards the horrifying monster. There-----was-----STILL some evil left in it-----in fact, the eyes were completely consumed by evil, but unlike the ferocious monster, _this_ maliciousness was..... familiar, _welcoming_, even. It was a controlled evil; an evil that preferred the background to the front lines, and an evil, that, at the moment, seemed to be in an uncharacteristic daze. 

Meowth gaped. Then gawked. Then opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

"Boss, ya need to look down."

Strange that Ivy had used a variation on those words just before the whole ordeal, and those very same words echoed in the creature's warped brain.

He didn't NEED to look down.

He KNEW without even opening his EYES _WHAT_ he was.

He was no longer human.....he was no longer a normal being, but a _MONSTER_...that had laid waste to his OWN headquarters, as well as to the _HUMANS_ that were unfortunate enough to be inside it.

This awareness agonized his mind, and released a pained snarl. But that's all it was. A snarl. Not a human sound, not a WORD, but a growl. He dropped Meowth on the ground, his clawed hand slowly relaxing, and then shaking as he grasped at his scaled throat, and snarled again, desperately trying to speak. But it was....IMPOSSIBLE. His frustration escalated tenfold, and as he put his undextrous hands to his snout, trying to move it at intervals, he smashed his tail into the desk that Meowth had crashed into in a great fury.

AAAAYYAAAGHHH!!!!!!!" Meowth cried as we was dropped to the ground, and he skittered towards the shaken, injured Persian, where he figured it would be the safest to be. "Meeeowth!!!! Persian, I 'tink your 'Master' is STILL nuts!!!!!"

"Mreowwwwww.....Mreoww.." _No, he's there...the master's there. Up here, he's there._

Persian meowed sadly, its eyes watery as it weakly brought its paw to its forehead, indicating the brain. Naïve as it was, it was very much in touch with its trainer's feelings. At least, to a point. Giovanni---if it was even right to call that terrible _monstrosity_ by that once-great _name_, was again trying to speak, straining, forcing every muscle in his ragged throat, rubbing his disgusting, slimy tongue against his blood-soaked teeth in a futile effort to produce a discernible noise.

None came.

He lowered his now-reptillian head in despair, and without even looking, picked Persian and Meowth up again in its huge hands, hind claws scratching the blood-splattered floor, heading towards the door. But instead of going through it, he crashed through the wall, crashing through a pillar and splitting the final foundations of the building, so much enraged was he. But more so filled with remorse. He had MURDERED... with his OWN, revolting hands.... and teeth... and... his MOUTH..... he had stained them ALL with blood...and had the deaths of his own EMPLOYEES on his hands.... and that kind of thing could not be hidden on the inside. It was frank and blatant: it screamed evil. It was plain and pure... pure.....

What was this? Something vague..... untouchable... something he had not experienced in so long, so cold and granitic that his heart had become.... What was this sense of dread? Of depression? A feeling that seemed to drill its way into what remained of his dark heart and bury itself deep inside, manifesting itself as a raging, yet subtle demon....

It suddenly came to him, as he made his way into the forest, past the terrified Rockets which ran willy-nilly at the sight of him. This..... feeling...... that never came when he ordered an assassination, nor when he stole from the innocent, the poor... This.... _feeling_ that burdened him so, that ached within his inhuman gut.....

.......Guilt.

Ivy had made good her revenge. The question was.....would he do so in return? Or would he accept it as a fair and just punishment for what he had done long ago? No one could tell by gazing into the anguished pits of blazing fire.

*~*~*

Professor Belina Ivy, otherwise known as Satan incarnate, was sitting on a stray rock in Viridian Forest, yawning as she looked down at her watch. She smiled. Judging from the way Giovanni's mind worked..... Gemini would be along shortly.

There was a sudden gust of oppressive air, and she looked upwards to see something blurred streak across the sky. It seemed to circle for a split second, and then dive downwards, a bit haphazardly towards her, as if it was in need of guidance... mentally and physically. 

The smile widened.

"Then came the storm....."

*~*~*****

**DMB: **Now, THIS is getting interesting! Forgive us for Giovanni's lapse into Ooc-World. He's.... er..... under quite a bit of stress. ^^;;;; Anyway..... REVIEW!!!

**B9T: **And look out for chapter 9! Thanks for reading!

**TO BE CONTINUED......**


	9. Disillusioned

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

_Man: Son? I don't have a lost son._

_Social Worker: According to these papers, you do._

_Man: I apologize, but there must be some kind of a mistake--_

_Social Worker: Sorry, but there isn't. It's all here in ink...._

_Man: But----w-wait a second!!_

_Social Worker: He bears a striking resemblance to you, sir. I believe you should---_

_Man: LISTEN. I_DO_NOT_HAVE_ANOTHER_SON. Do you UNDERSTAND?!?!?_

_Social Worker: Sir!!! There's no need to overreact... we can always put him in the orphanage---_

_Man: Orphanage?_

_Social Worker: Yes._

_Man: ........He _does_ look like me......_

_Social Worker: Here he is. I'll send you the rest of the paperwork so you can get it all done.... Good-bye, then._

_Man: Wait----what's his---name?!_

Sound of tires squealing.

_Man: ....Ma'am ....?_

Sound of a small, infantile cough.

_Man: You.... could you really-----?_

Voice from inside a house.__

_Woman: Flint, what's the ruckus out there about?!??!_

Silence.__

_Boy: ......They called me Brock..... I---I think.... I can't remember......_

_Woman: .......What in God's name---?!? Flint, why does he look exactly like----_

_Flint: .............Just get him inside._

_Woman: But---WHAT THE HELL IS----_

_Flint: I'll explain.... later._

Sound of a door slamming.

_Brock: Are you really my daddy?_

_Flint: I hope not._

_Brock: .....You don't want me here?_

_Flint: ...It's not that._

_Brock: Then what?_

_Flint: If you are my first son.........._

_Brock: Y-yeah?_

_Flint: ........Nothing. Get inside._

--Conversation overheard by neighbors on January 4, 1992. No papers were brought. No investigation followed.

*~*~*

**Chapter 9: **Disillusioned

*~*~*

Ash collapsed on the ground, Misty falling under him. This was definitely no way to travel, but there was little choice in that. With a huge effort, the orange-haired girl pulled Ash to his feet, supporting him on her shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to catch her breath, but a familiar sight caught her eye. She looked upwards to see a black spot racing through the sky. It was hard to see...the airborne object blended with the complete darkness. But there wasn't any time to think about that now. They HAD to get to safety...somehow...

Misty looked up again. 

"That looks like..... Sort of like.... Maybe....." She stopped, refusing to be reminded of the plight of their older friend, and dragged Ash and herself along, away from the burning building. The black streak itself was too hard to follow, anyway. It was camouflaged completely against the dark sky, which had just recently recovered from the horrible storm. The ground was muddy, the foliage was wet..... and somewhere in the not-so-far distance, laughter could be heard...... mad..... laughter......

Then, the streak seemed to pause, and shoot downwards, disappearing completely under the heads of the Viridian Forest treetops.

"Maybe...a meteorite?" Misty asked to herself, and she looked backwards as the burning building finally collapsed, the sounds of crashing concrete creating an enormous din...... but then came the silence. The kind of silence that preceded a deadly situation. She gazed over to the trees, but the black object had disappeared. Not particularly wanting to know what it was, she continued to drag Ash along through the drenched soil, the mud up to her ankles.

The laughter.... it was becoming stronger by the moment, as if they weren't out of danger; they had managed to climb out of the frying pan and into the fire..... no, ironically, the _inferno._ A voice became clear, albeit soft. It was synonymous with the cooing that a dog might receive from its master.

"Yes, Gemini.... You _are_ a good boy, aren't you? Yes, yes you are..... Much more obedient than that stupid Zero-X, mmm.....? Hah-haaa......... Hm? Behind the ear? Yes, you like to be scratched there, don't you?"

Misty's eyes widened in a clear mix of anger and fear as she heard what was being done to Brock. He was being treated like a...HOUNDOUR... no... much LESS than a Houndour...... it sickened her immensely, and she slowed her steps, a bad feeling warning her to stay back, yet at the same time urging her on... foward, through the thick mud. The despicable feminine voice grew louder, and she was dreading what she might see in the muddy clearing in front of them....

Then, the catalyst; "Rrrooaarrrghh....." A growl of contentment, of satisfaction.... like an Arcanine getting its stomach rubbed by a trainer. It was a GROWL, an unintelligible, wordless GROWL that somehow managed to carry the distorted, perverted voice of someone she knew, which heightened the amorality of Ivy's sickening deeds.

"Yes, you're a disciplined one....." the voice continued, softly.

_What is she TALKING about?! _Misty's thoughts raced at a dizzying rate, and she quickened her paces, her curiosity growing along with her fear. The plop-plop of her shoes sinking into the mud grew faster as she jogged, then ran towards the sound of the voice... and the.. familiar... the familiar..... that..... GROWL.... as she jogged with the unconcious Ash still on leaning against her shoulder.

Misty came upon the clearing.

"Yes..... a disciplined one, indeed...." The.... creature..... was sitting at Ivy's feet, its tail laid out on the ground behind it and its eyes closed in contentment. Ivy was looking down at it as she sat on a stray rock, her hands on the side of its head as she stroked its neck, scratched behind its ear, and held it close to her with a black LEASH and a steel CHOKE CHAIN.

"Yes... completely obedient...." Ivy slowly raised her eyes towards the intruders, arching an eyebrow calmly. "Well.... what kind of _specimen_ do we have _here?"_

Misty was silent for a long moment, unable to say anything as she stared at the... leash and CHAIN..... in utter horror. However, it wasn't to last long when she shrieked, her face purple with absolute RAGE.

"WHAT THE _HELL_ DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO HIM?!?!!?! LET _GO _OF HIM, YOU UGLY _HAG_!!!!!!" Hell was never more personified in those normally light eyes, that were burning with pure rage at seeing her friend..... treated like a... DOG. Not as a human being...but an ANIMAL.....a POKéMON.........The kind of treatment he did NOT deserve......

However, the worst part was.... it seemed to be enjoying it. It opened an eye and looked at the girl with curiosity, and then cold indifference.

_The girl is of no importance.  
The Mistress is all that matters.  
The Mistress._

But.... that familiar face.... the red hair... that... VOICE that seemed to be able to crack apart a mountain with one cacophonous note.... the brow furrowed for a moment, and then there was a sudden flash and cry---CRY, not word--of realization, as the creature whined, crawling on its hands and knees towards the other.

_Misty-----HELP.... Oh, God... Misty.... Please hear me.... MISTY!!!!!!!!!_

Ivy's eyes narrowed, and she grit her teeth as she yanked on the leash. The choke chain pulled on the monster's neck, sending it backwards with a gasp for air and keeping it from the one it desired to see.

"Hm. Then again, obedience can be very fickle." With that, Ivy took a syringe from her pocket, twirled in the air once, and stabbed it into Brock's upper arm, just below the spikes. There was another yell of pain, of agony, as the claws clutched at the head.........

And then, silence. The creature sat up once more, its eyes dead as it stared at Misty... and yet.... at nothing at all.

"Very good, Gemini...... I trust you won't do that again." The Professor smiled wickedly, and used the chain to pull her....... dog....... towards her She smiled wickedly and laid her head on its shoulder, as one might do with.... their Growlithe. She addressed Misty smugly. "As you can see, _girl_, I spent much time and energy on preparing the primary chemicals and programming ITS genes to react to my newer injections. I believe.... that I deserve the POKÉMON as much as you do."

The brainwashed humanoid that was Brock only looked on in a strange sort of hypnotic silence.

Misty's face contorted into a mask of pure rage, her teeth clenched, her fists balled and her voice shrill and emotionally pained...and incensed with increased anger.....anger at what Ivy was saying.....about the chemicals...programming.....INJECTIONS....unimaginable TORTURES inflicted on poor BROCK...who deserved NONE of it....who was innocent---INNOCENT...living through HELL for trying to live a moral life..it wasn't fair.......  
It sent something in her on fire, and it set her emotions ablaze with incensed hatred.

"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT THE RIGHT TO DO THIS-----To..... _CHANGE_ Brock into what YOU think is BEST?! What gives you the RIGHT?!!"

Silence from the leashed PROPERTY and a confident smile from the owner.

"I'LL TELL _YOU!!!! _NO ONE!!!!!!!!!! HE'S NOT AN _IT!!!!!!!!!!  
_HE'S A PERSON!!!!!!! A _PERSON_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU _HEAR _ME,   
YOU BITCH?!!!!!!"

Ivy was about to answer when Misty stomped foward, dragging Ash with her, a chunk of mud splattering up into the air. "LET HIM GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Let him go?" Ivy arched an eyebrow at Misty's explosion of hatred, and then smiled, like a leopard satisfied with its kill. "Fine, then. I do not object." She unclipped the leash, leaving on...... Brock's.... collar, as she stood to her feet and stepped backwards. "Do what you wish. Try what you may. Let your......." her smile twisted into an evil smirk. "....friend decide where his alliances lie." 

"It'll be Ash and me...you'll...see!" Misty bit her lip and laid Ash down into the deep mud, advancing, but finding herself doing so hesitantly. Brock was still Brock, but it was hard to believe it was so, especially since he could not talk. Once speech was taken away and replaced by primal sounds...it was taking away one half of visible humanity, and all of the audible. Though Misty felt.... something dear towards Brock, there could be no doubt she was a little apprehensive. Yet, she put it all aside, walked forward towards the monster as Ivy walked backward, and looked into the creature's blank eyes.

"Brock....." she said gently, reaching for his steel-like claws. "It's me...Misty!"

A growl, unfriendly, hostile...... the decision was made clear in that one primitive noise. Yet, the girl persevered.

"Brock!!"

Tears collected in her blue eyes. There was no WAY...that she could set her friend free from the loathsome scientist's tight grasp. Her hold on him was.... like the COLLAR..... on his NECK..... it bound Brock to Ivy, rendered him HER personal------PROPERTY.

"You see, girl?" Ivy's smirk upturned just slightly. "Try anything. Anything you like. Gemini, let her--PROVE her thesis to be... untrue."

The creature gave a small, almost invisible nod, its eyes still staring blankly into the air, past the shoulders of the water trainer, and far off into the dark horizon. Still, nods were considered to be rather human.... and this gave the desperate Misty a desperate hope. She would pursue that faint shine until it completely dissipated into the pervasive oblivion. It.....HE.....was her FRIEND------she couldn't abandon him. The pit he was lodged in was so deep, so far down, reaching down to the most unreachable expanses of earth, but she would not...could not turn her back on him and leave him there. She would get him out. Someway or another, she would bring him up from that abbhorent hell.

However, the hell... this... controlled torment, didn't seem to want to give way to anything, as the monster stared into nothingness.

"Gemini...." Ivy murmured. "Look into the girl's eyes."

It did as it was told. From the side, its eyes had seemed dull, unresponsive, but looking dead-on.... they were burning, burning in flames, in agony, in torment that surpassed the most horrible nightmares that could ever be created by the human mind. They were filled.... with pure.... PAIN......

And yet, there was no sign of it in any other part of the body. It was silent. It was immobile. It was tensed, but only so that it could quickly carry out the will of its Mistress swiftly and efficiently.

The creature was silent.

But its soul was screaming.

"Br---Brock...!! Won't you say ANYTHING?!" Misty's eyes were swelling, red with falling tears to see her friend's internal agony, and yet, unable to do ANYTHING about it.

Complete...utterly...POWERLESS.

Powerless...to stop...EVERYTHING.....that was WRONGFULLY being done to him...

The rain began to fall again.

The clouds cried in unison with the girl.

Ivy paused a moment, and then said: "He killed his own brother, by the way. Murdered him. When he was conscious of his actions."

A sharp intake of breath from the monster, but that was all. The eyes screamed louder, as they continued to stare into Misty's. They seemed to want so hard to look away....

".....Not to mention the other... Oh, I'd say at _least_ thirty visitors and employees in the Pewter City Museum of Science......" Ivy chuckled, bringing a hand to her lips. "So you see..... you aren't _completely_ invulnerable."

"You......lying bitch!!!!! I'm never going to believe that!!!!! Brock would _never_ do that and know he was doing it!!! Never!!!!!" Misty glared towards the evil woman. She would have attacked her right there and then... but..... she knew that what Ivy said was true; as long as Ivy held power over her friend, her life was in immediate danger.

But she didn't want to believe it.

Aware of this peril, and trying to realize something otherwise, Misty looked into the eyes.... the tormented eyes..... that were full of..... GUILT? But why? Could it be that-----it COULDN'T be... no...

The tears coursed down her face in streaming rivulets. She was disillusioned... but..... no... she wouldn't believe that he CONSCIOUSLY did that... that he was AWARE that he..... had........ killed........

...Killed. It was never such a strong word until looking into the eyes of the killer. Then it was different. It was real..... it was there..... but... Brock couldn't have killed... intentionally.... it was impossible... it couldn't happen... it was the farthest thing from reality............ and yet........

She knew it was true.

".....Feeding off the resentment those Pewter City inhabitants drilled into it.... hah-hah..... Of course, a _human_ brain has faults, but a _Pokémon_ brain has even more." Ivy's voice came; constant and biting.

Silence from the monster, but were its...... claws......... shaking.......?

Ivy's voice again: "You still believe it impossible, do you not? That I can have Gemini so _completely _under my power that it would kill and harm others _consciously?"_ She paused. "Try. Try to bring it to 'his' senses." She stepped back, her arms outstretched behind her disarmingly. "I will not interfere.... Hah-hah, on the contrary, I will let you. Give it....... your best shot." She turned away completely, falling into the shadowy shade of a tree. "And when you fail, I will order it to kill you. Hm-hm..... Games.... are part of the fun."

Misty clenched her teeth, and looked Brock in his inhuman eyes. She sighed. She couldn't run away. She would HAVE to do this and play by the mad scientist's rules. There was no other choice. She grabbed onto the creature's hand......cringing at the feel of the cold claws. The orange-haired girl looked over at Ash, who was still lying unconscious in the mud. Not only would she have to DO this, but it seemed as if she would be forced to do it alone. Wiping the last tears from her eyes, but unable to mask a voice choked with sorrow, she commanded in a weak tone:

"Brock...... Wake up.....!"

Silence.

Then, laughs from the other side of the clearing.

"Really, do you believe THAT will work?!? HAH!!!!!!!!! HAH_HAH_HAH!!!!!!!!!! I pity your imagination so much that I'll give you a second chance. Go on!!!! Go on so that I can laugh at your failure."

However, unseen to Ivy, there was a sudden twitch of a muscle from beneath the scales that Misty was shakily feeling. And---another twitch..... which almost resembled a panicked squeeze.

Nothing else moved. Not a milimeter, save for the familiar, and now wet hair, which rose and fell in the harsh wind.

Raindrops fell down from its forehead, its cheeks, its chin, which strangely resembled tears....

But they weren't.

It was a cold, cruel reality. No emotion.....none at all...Misty was quickly losing hope...and the more hope that is lost, the more blind desire is gained. She grasped his claws with both of her soft hands, and began screaming shrilly into the monster's dark face, the falling rain strengthening as she implored.

"Wake up!!!! WAKE UP, or I'll-----I'LL HIT YOU!!!!!!!! PLEASE, Brock.... WAKE _UP!!!!!!!!!!"_

......No use. It was absolutely USELESS. The futility... the waste of energy.... effort... of trying to bring Brock back to his senses was visible on Misty's tear-lathered face. In her frustration she slowly fell to her knees and then collapsed forward, yelling out incoherent curses and threats as she pounded the cold, wet mud.

Then..... she looked upward, into the callous face of... her.... crush. Her gaze slowly fell, until her reddened eyes met the cool irises of Brock's "Mistress". Ivy _did_ say that after watching her fail, she would order her pet to kill the girl. Would he........ really do that? Misty again looked up into the controlled, crimson eyes, inwardly burning with agony, but outwardly mindless and feral. So much unspeakable TORMENT......that was hidden by the shadow of Ivy's iron fist, a shadow..... that was about to be used against Misty herself.

She could have run away, but she didn't. Instead, the water trainer was suddenly.... overtaken by a desperate urge, an urge that seemed to overtake her body and soul.

Shivering, she stood up, wrapped her lean arms around the creature's stiff, unmoving neck, and placed her lips to the cold, black ones of the monster.

There was a moment of shaky silence, as the creature's breathing suddenly quickened, and then stopped altogether. Its eyes shut themselves tightly, and it slowly, ever so slowly, put its left claws to her cheek, sending a chill down her spine but hope into her heart......

Even through those horrifyingly cold lips, she KNEW it was......... him.

There was a moment of hesitant bliss-----and then a sudden yell.

"D-DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!" Ivy was holding up a PokéBall, black in appearance, and, ironically, an R upon the front. "GEMINI, RETURN!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Almost immediately, the only feeling upon Misty's chilled face was the cold Viridian air, and the only thing in her outstretched arms was nothingness-----a scarlet hue of nothingness, that twisted and writhed in agonizing patterns as it was forced back into its cage.

"Now..... THAT....." Ivy grit her teeth, her eyes narrowed into slits as she pocketed the RocketBall. "Was unplanned for." She regained her composure a moment later, however, and grinned. "So..... how did it feel to kiss a Pokémon, eh? Pleasant? I hope not."

Misty couldn't answer. The cold feel of the dark scales had almost been..... strangely.... warm to her, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was that Ivy had imprisoned Brock in a POKéBALL...... that was the last straw. Somewhere, a roll of thunder rumbled across the sky. The rain began to pour in thick sheets.

"GIVE.....HIM...BACK!!!!" Misty demanded, reaching for her PokéBalls but instead freezing in terror. They had been taken away from her. Her eyes narrowed in anger, and threw HERSELF at Ivy, trying to grab for the ebony device. "HE'S NOT YOURS!!!"

"OH, YES, _IT_ IS!!!!!!!" Ivy began to yell hysterically, the earlier scene having scared something into her inner being, she pulled the PokéBall from her labcoat, holding with her hand high in the air, out of Misty's immediate reach in a grotesque game of keep-away. Imagine... everything.... in that small, minimized orb, only the size of a marble.........

Misty had finally reached her limit. In a superhuman rage, the water trainer leaped at Ivy, delivering a forceful kick to her stomach, her sneaker shoving itself into the flesh with tremendous impact, as the rage intensified.

"WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT!"

"AAAAAAAAAAARRRGHHH!!!!!!!!!" Ivy cried out in intense pain, clutching at her stomach as she was thrown backwards into the trunk of a tree. She fell to the ground, wheezing and heaving for air, and her chest in a state of ironic, pure PAIN as she blearily looked down at her hands.

They were empty.

*~*~*

The raven-colored reptile known as Zero-X had never encountered anything as terrible as the sunshine.

It was brilliant to others, but to its eyes, that yearned for the opressive darkness, this light was pain-inducing from everywhere where the sun shone. It caused a horrible aching that sprouted from inside its head, This hurt... that came from the light.... it seemed so alien, yet natural, as if the creature had always hated light... but never THIS much. It had hated it because it was displeasing to its eyes, but it had never weakened Giovanni before.... before the change.

Looking at the hazy rays of sunlight that sprinkled the soft mud underfoot was draining, the reptile growled, snapping its eyelids closed. The light persisted. It growled louder and clamped its claws over the eyes, and the light STILL pervaded. Desperate to get away from that abominable light, it very uncharacteristically burrowed a hole through the mud, and plunged its head into it, in a huge effort to avoid that despicable sun.

In the meantime, the forgotten felines fell out of its claws, both gasping and choking for air.

"MEEEEEOOOWWWWTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Meowth cried, gagging as he laid in the mud and spit out the grit and grime that had accumulated in his mouth while in the hands of the..... lizard. "WHAD' DA _HELLOOWTH_ HAS GOTTIN ENTO YAH MASTOYR, PERSIAN?!?!"

Usually, Meowth's voice was hard to discern. In dire circumstances, it was nearly impossible to decipher as English.

"Mreeeowwwww!!!!!" _I don't know... I just hope he doesn't decide to stay under here!!  
_The feline's cries were choked with the accumulating mud. It thrashed, in a sorry attempt to resurface, but the hole that its "master" was digging was deepening.

".....GgggggRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!" Meowth roared in surprising fury, jumping up and executing a... well, a Fury Swipes attack on the creature's leathery neck. "STOPPIT BOSS, OR WE'RE ALL DON FOYR!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The "Boss" felt a slight...brush of claws against his throat, and scooping up Meowth and Persian, tossed them to the surface, and finally stopped digging, covering up the hole he had made, and virtually sealing himself underneath the mud. The blinding light had been his sole focus, his sole... LOATHING the entire time. 

Meowth gasped for a moment, harshly, grabbing at his small chest with his even smaller claws as he laid on the grassy, firm surface of a bank surrounding the mud pool, staring at the sky. Then, he muttered something in his dazed state, which seemed to be towards Persian:

"Wonder if he can breathe down dere...."

"Mreow......."_ I don't know....._

The Persian cleaned its whitish fur, yowled weakly, still drained from the previous ordeal, and turned its head towards the unevolved cat. "Mreowwwww.Mreowwwww----reowww....." _I'm staying here with master. Go and find your friends._

Persian no longer spoke with arrogance to the other feline, being so completely disillusioned that there was no bringing it back to its original mindset.

"But----what if da Boss goes....." Meowth blinked as he staggered upwards. "What if he goes all nutso again?!? Den what?!? I mean... how da MEEOWWWTH did he turn into a... one of us?"

"Mreow.....reowwwww..." _I don't know..._

The larger cat raised its remaining eye to the sun. "Mreow......Mreowwwwww........." _I don't think I really want to know..._

"Why not?" Meowth said, his brow furrowing. "You're his best Pokémon!!!! You're sapposed tah be his loyal companion or somethin'!!!! And now ya don't wanna know why he looks-----IS a _FREAK_!?!?!?!?"

"Mreowwwww........" _Meowth, go away.....I don't want to know.....I wouldn't understand._

It gave another saddened yowl, and turned its battered face away, and if one was looking they could see that the jewel on its forehead had been lost in the most gruesome fashion. It closed its eye..... and looked longingly at the mud and the monstrosity that was laying beneath it.

Meowth blinked, then sighed, then turned away and began trudging towards wherever his teammates might be, even as he doubted if Team Rocket would ever be the same again.

*~*~*

The RocketBall was slowly, painfully rolling through the wet grass, towards the sprawled-out visage of a groaning trainer, who was currently laying in the nearby mud. A soft, soft moan was heard, as Ash's eyelids slowly fluttered open, his vision blurred with rain and dirt as he squinted forward.

"Wat's thes?" His speech was slightly slurred, as he groped forward and brought the strange PokéBall into his hands. He turned it over in his fingers for a second and then blinked up towards Misty. "Didda miss sumthin'?"

Misty shot the younger boy an uncharacteristic scowl and wrenched the black PokéBall, and the living soul inside it, away from Ash. "Give me!!" She held it tightly, sheltering it from the rain, and dragged up Ash by his collar. "I'll tell you about it when we get out of here!!!!"

"Huh?!" Ash was back to his old antics, as he blinked and was dragged along. Ivy groaned from not-so-far off, as the two trainers sped off to the deeper part of the woods. His eyes narrowed.

"H-hey!!!!! I found that Pokémon!!!! I get to keep it!!!!"

Misty stopped, then whirled upon Ash, her eyes raging in anger. "Ash, this is BROCK!!! You can't keep HIM!!" she yelled, clutching the PokéBall jealously to her heart.

All Ash did was stare, a strange expression on his face. His features suddenly darkened, and he shoved his hands into his jean's pockets, looking downwards. Then, he muttered:

"I _still_ had it first....."

It was shocking that he was acting in such a manner, but then again, he was reaching adolescence, which is usually the time in which personalities change, morals twist, and often times, children begin to act more and more like their parents....

"I can't believe you, Ash!!!! This is Brock, not-----some..... some...... POKÉMON...!!" The traumatized water trainer choked on the words, and then a glare overtook her blue eyes. "But forget it... you don't understand him anymore....... no one does!!!"

She stomped off deeper into the dense woods, tightly holding the small black orb.....

It took Ash a moment for the full meaning of the words that he had just said to sink into his rather slow brain. If there was one thing about him that couldn't be determined through his genealogy, it most certainly was his intelligence.

".............W-wait!!!!!!" He yelled, running after Misty. "I'm sorry!!!! I'm all out of it-----I dunno what I'm sayin'!!!!! C'mon, Misty!!! You know I didn't mean it.........."

She managed to keep back an oncoming rush of tears as she neared the edge of the forest, the rain pounding above the treetops. "Oh, yeah?! How am I supposed to believe you, Ash?"

Why was she so cold to him? But then again, no human could have witnessed the way Ivy played with a once-human's mind...and look at other humans in a friendly light.

" 'Cause.... 'cause....." They were now well away from Ivy's current location, and Ash grit his teeth, stamping a foot down and crossing his arms. "Because I say so, and my Mom always told me that it's better to do something bad and then make up for it instead of doing something good just to make up for doing something bad afterwards!!!!!"

This was the lesson of the day. Ash's morals were extremely childish, and always, ALWAYS vague to the point of disastrous frustration.

"You're terrible, Ash!!! Really terrible!!!"

Misty's pained voice grew distant as she headed out of the forest with Brock in tow, unknowingly towards a certain location that had been burned off the map so recently before.

Ash grew irritable once more, and scowled as he tromped after Misty. "Oh, YEAH?!?! Well, then, how come you don't just let HIM _OUT?!??!?!"_

The black orb sat, clasped within Misty's cold, clammy hands, shaking slightly..... shaking....... as if struggling to escape. However, the RocketBalls were locked with a special code, that would make it difficult even for Misty to open it.

But it _was_ erratically shaking, with a force that was slowly escalating...

"Fine, then I will!!" Misty answered indignantly, and tossed the ball gently towards the ground. It landed with a thud, but no bright light was seen. Her eyes widened, and she tried throwing it again, this time a bit harder. But still it did not open. Over and over she tried, throwing the thing harder and harder as her frustration rose. She knew well that Brock was trying to get out of the ball, but there was some type of lock on it.......she tried in futility to break the the object open, but it just wouldn't budge.....yet, she HAD to get Brock out.....

Ash crossed his arms across his chest, looking a bit less worried than he should have been--but then again, he hadn't quite realized the seriousness of the situation.

"You can't get it---him---out?" He frowned. "Maybe it's some kinda Team Rocket trick!" 

"If it is... then it's hopeless!!" Misty held the ball to her eyes, and sighed heavily, lapsing into silence. She gazed at the ball, wishing for it to open. But there was no chance of that. It would stay closed, and Brock would never emerge.....

...Unless....

"Hi!"

Misty's head snapped up. "Ash, did you say something??" 

"Huh? Me?" Ash blinked downwards and then glared at his abdomen, rubbing it. "Stupid stomach.... are you growlin' again?!?" His head snapped upwards. "Speaking of which---Misty, I'm huuuuuungrrrrryyyy!!!!!" 

"How can you THINK about food?!" Misty snapped, her chest heaving in supressed rage. 

The voice broke the short silence.

"Food? I've got lots of food!"

Misty slowly began to realize that that was not Ash, and she clutched the ball tighter, her eyes darting around as she stood to her feet and tensed her muscles, afraid that someone may jump up and attack. 

"Who's...there?!"

"Me!"

"Where are you?!"

"Here!"

A brown-haired boy a bit younger than Misty with optimistic large eyes and a sickeningly positive demeanor walked into view, holding a picnic basket. However, it wasn't the food that caught Misty's attention, but the R on the boy's white shirt. Her eyes filled with anger, even more so now, aware of the abominable things they had done to Brock.

"Team Rocket!!!"

"That's right! Ooh, you look like the "twerps" Jessie and James and Meowth always talk about!" Mondo's bright face fell into a sulk. "You hurt them a lot!!"

"Uh........" Misty was at a complete loss at what to say. She shot a bewildered glance at Ash. 

"Twerps?!?" Ash exclaimed, his eyes widening. "THEY CALLED US _TWERPS_ to YOU TOO?!?"

However, a sharp nudge in the side and a glare from Misty got his thoughts back in the proper place. "Uh----I mean----you know Jessie, James, and Meowth??! The really dumb Team Rocket people who always---"

Mondo was completely taken aback, and he was hurled into a state of complete hororr; it manifested on his youthful countenance. "Dumb?" His voice was quickly rising into the blazing levels of angered fury. He usually was a mild type of person, but when it came to his idols,ridiculing them was sacrilege to him.. "DUMB??? HOW DARE YOU!??! Jessie and James are the greatest Team Rocket members that ever lived!! They've tried to capture your DUMB Pikachu more times than you can count!! And they've got the best flair and style! And they're just plain COOL! So..... nyah-nyah!!!!"

Mondo pulled down his eyelid. Misty blinked.

"Uh.... yeah. Whatever."

She looked at Mondo with a nonplussed expression, but it fell away as heated rage overtook her upon realizing that Mondo was part of the terrible organization that had.... taken Brock. Her eyes grew in their fiery blaze and she shouted,

"Get AWAY!!! He's not yours!!"

She held the PokéBall protectively, hiding it away from the enemy. Mondo looked at her curiously and perked up.

"Ooh, you think I'm going to steal that, don't you?"

Misty gave him a hard look and backed away slowly, until she was beside Ash. The brown-haired Rocket suddenly jumped foward, and Misty gave a sharp cry as the ball was wrenched away from her.

"NO!!! GIVE HIM-----"

Mondo displayed a hurt expression, and then, smiling coyly, he touched what seemed to be a keypad on the underside of the ball. There was a rapid string of beeps, and he dropped the Rocketball to the mud below. The two halves separated, releasing a white burst of light as whatever it contained came out......

Misty held her breath as Ash leaned forward.

At first there was nothing, nothing save for the scarlet light that hung in the air and over the ground. However, slowly, it began to take shape, twisting, darkening, solidifying, and.... BECOMING the abomination known simply as... Brock.

However, it wasn't the terrifying visage that those in Pewter City seemed to have interpreted. It was curled up into itself, laying on its side on the ground and its scaled forehead pressed to the shaking knees of its legs. It's tail was twitching slightly, rustling the surrounding grass, and its face was hidden in shadows. Its claws were too busy hugging its knees to kill, its teeth were too tightly grit to draw blood, its spikes were digging into the ground, too weak to destroy... and its voice----its GROWL--was too choked with muffled sobs to even give out the weakest of roars.

However, even if its horriffic features had been lessened by the trauma and grief that it was emanating, the merciless morning sun that pierced its wrathful rays through the foliage above seemed to give more magnification to its deformities than the stadium lights of a baseball field. In the dungeons, it had been able to hide its face, its body, its hideousness which was only worsened by the stark familiarity of its other features.... even with Ivy, it had been partially hidden.

Now it was stripped of any kind of cloaking, and its scales, designed---_designed--_to hide it in deep darkness, only brought out its utter..... _inhumanity_ against the optimistic light of day that was slowly displacing the darkness.

It simply laid there, a shadow upon the dew-laden, Viridian grass.

Misty couldn't say anything. Her heart froze beneath her chest, and it refused to rise and fall. The sorry state that her friend......the inhuman MONSTER was now in... brought her to the layering mud, and she looked deep into his eyes, of that strange...unnatural color, terrifying in their own light, that constrasted sharply with the sunlight above. The breaking dawn through the storm clouds that were lightening their drizzle and floating away almost was a mockery: it laughed with scorn upon the damned beast. 

"Brock...!!! You're-----"

Mondo couldn't have picked a worse time to cut in. 

"It's...... it's..... SCARY!!!!!" he shouted, and fled from the forest as rapidly as possible, leaving the two trainers........ and the monster in the dense wood. 

Ash just gawked. Glancing at Brock in the dungeons without really seeing anything, and yelling threats at the deaf wall was _one_ thing, but now, seeing his great and good friend, teacher, girl-scoper, advisor, cleaner, cook, and caretaker as a...... POKÉMON....... it was just....... just......

He continued to stare with eyes that were widening by the second, as he put his fist to a nearby tree, and slowly, surreally, slid down to the ground. His eyes didn't move a millimeter.

Misty didn't even notice Ash's less-than-usual reaction. She was slowly walked towards the shaking form, and then kneeled, slowly. She soon found herself bitterly sobbing at the dark creature's side. She whispered to him soft encouragement, that everything would eventually turn out good again, and everything would fix itself...... and that they would get through this, but she knew she was only fooling herself.

The creature itself.... didn't even seem to see, hear, even _feel_ anything around it..... It was trapped in its own world, of loss, of regret, of _pain....._ Why had he killed him? WHY!??!?! What the _hell_ had he been thinking, why the _hell_ was he so horrible.... he was a murderer.....

A_MURDERER.

He suddenly did recoil, whirling to his knees as he held his head in his claws and thrashed, enough for it to count as an attack, perhaps, and he cried out in complete anguish and sorrow.

And all the while, no words.....

Not a single syllable.

"Brock!! Are you-----okay?"

Misty didn't realize that, again, she had chosen the most unnecessary and inappropriate words that she could have ever picked for the moment. Maybe in her mind, she was trying to smooth it over. But what good could that do? She had no CONCEPT of what Brock had gone and still was going through. She could only watch from a distance---or maybe not..... No.... No, she _couldn't_ see. Nor hear... the soul behind the tormented growls. Why? She was a human. No human could fully understand this twisted torture that was continuing to be inflicted. As it was, there were few that could even PARTLY understand it.

However.... _he_ could hear _her_ voice.... 

It punctured the turmoil, and his eyes, which had been shut through the tempest, suddenly snapped open.

There was dizzying darkness for a moment, and then light.... through the trees.

The creature blinked dazedly, bringing a hand to shade its eyes. Light.... seeing light..... being in.... light...... The storm clouds had lifted, the sun burning down upon him.... but.... wasn't it impossible.... To be in... light?

It seemed to be, as he gave out a sudden cry of pain. The light was like a laser, a spear, an acid that dripped down the whole of his body and seeped into his mind. He skittered backwards into the shade of one of the larger trees, in the mix of a leap and a crawl, and shivered... at the... sun?

_Light.... I'm afraid... of.... the light........_ he closed his eyes. The light was blinding, and he couldn't see anything in that horrible halo of white. _Damn....... them......... It...... the light..... hurts......_

"Brock, what's wrong?"

Misty couldn't understand him. There was nothing, save for the odd reflexes and intermittient growls. She yearned to understand, but the incomprehensibility of it made it impossible. Though this was Brock in mind, IT was more of an animal...no, a MONSTER.

And yet, she did notice one thing, and she looked him firmly in his burning red eyes. "The light? You're scared of the light?"

That voice again...... Brock looked upwards, fearful of what he might see. Through that white haze.... Misty was leaning forward, blurred by the light... and Ash... was silent, unmoving.... just.... staring.

Brock looked back to Misty, and slowly....... slowly..... nodded.

_They made me afraid.... they..... MADE me afraid..... Misty, they _made_ me afraid!!!! I HATE THEM!!!!!!!_

He stretched his vocal cords, opened his mouth.... and from his chest... erupted..... a cry. A strangled, choked, rough cry. He had no WORDS to offer, but somehow.... he.... acknowledged.... their presence.

Through... the cry.

Misty finally understood with that single cry of desperation. She stepped forward and she took the clawed, monstrous hand of the other, and gripped it tightly, though the scales...not the smooth tanned flesh, but black...... scales..... It made her recoil a hint, but she buried the horror and tried to ease the situation.

"Come on, Brock... you can come back with us, now.... you're free."

_Freedom..._ that... wonderful, joyous word....

Which he didn't even hear.

He looked down at Misty.

_And you're.... you're scared of ME......._ He looked into her eyes. He could see it, there. Fear of the unknown, the untouched, the unloved.... he could see it. Maybe she wasn't.... consciously.... but.... subconsciously......

He pulled the claws away, and retreated even further into the darkness, giving out a long, low, growl. A primal sound of apprehension, of distrust.

The sound of..... a caged tiger, perhaps?

"Wha--??" Misty couldn't believe it. Brock.....not trusting her? Not trusting HER, his friend who had gone through so much with him, who admired him so, had gone through all that trouble to save him from Ivy? From Satan and the inferno of her torturous Hell? She just didn't get it..... "Brock..... I'm not going to hurt you!"

She reached out her hand towards the darkness, that seemed to swallow the untrusting beast up.

"I'm not like them, Brock........"

Her voice grew weak. Was this all a waste? To try so hard and fail?

But then.... it hit her like a bullet in her heart, at a million miles an hour.

_He_was_afraid of_humans._

HUMANS.

But.... how could he....? Be..... afraid of.... something which he WAS? Because he WAS a human, wasn't he?

WASN'T HE?!?

She didn't know anymore. Was she fooling herself all the time? Maybe Brock wasn't human... but..... no, it couldn't be!! He was the one that had been there through thick and thin...... and yet...... just from hearing, from seeing, and from feeling........

He _wasn't_ human.

"M-Misty.........?" Ash's voice was small, a whisper as he shivered from behind her. "What's wrong with him?"

Another snarl, and then a halting lunge, in warning of coming any nearer.

Of his own will.

"Ash, stay back!!" Misty said out of fear, trying to keep herself from backing away and estranging Brock even further. "He..... doesn't trust us...!"

_But why? We're NOT Team Rocket! Team Rocket...and...Professor IVY did this to him! Not us!! _

_WHY do you HATE us?_

_Why do you hate...... me?_

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrooooorrrrgghh.........." Brock made a another step forward, and this time.... the forked _tongue_ snapped out of his mouth, and he bared his teeth as he _hissed_ at them.

If it hadn't been for the hair... that revealed his true identity.... the Pokémon would have been a new breed of humanoid Arbok, whom Ash would unrelentlessly try to capture....

Capture.... Ash's eyes widened as one of his gloved hands slowly strayed towards his belt. _Maybe if...._

"ASH!!!! Don't you _dare!!!!!!"_

All fear vanished as Misty very hastily threw herself at Ash and knocked him down into the fresh mud.

"BUT, MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSTTTYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ash cried, the PokéBall outstretched in one hand, away from Misty as he was tackled. "WHAT IF HE------!!!!!!!"

"I-----I DON'T CARE!!!!!" she shouted carelessly, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened to deal with reason anymore. She wrestled the device away and inexplicably started to run away..... far away, from EVERYTHING. Her heart pounded in her chest as she charged through the foliage, disillusioned by the encounter with Brock, and at the same time, enfuriated with Ash, and just... wanting to get away from it all...

...Little did she know that she was heading straight for Team Rocket headquarters.

Ash blinked for a second, not sure what had just happened. He looked backwards, only to see the Pokémon, the sight of which was very tempting..... but he no longer had his PokéBall. He stood up from the mud, and his brown and sable eyes roved around, disconcerted by the sight of the scaly Pokémon. He soon had turned his back towards his... FORMER friend, and had begun to walk off.

Then, there was a sudden grip on his shoulder, a grip that was somehow familiar, as that hand had rested on the shoulder many times before in reassurance. However, it was meant to do something different this time, as Ash was whirled around, and he found himself staring into two blood-red, pupiless eyes.

The orbs narrowed for a moment.

"AUUGHHHHH!!!!! Misty, wait up!!!!!" Any thought of trying to catch this creature was pulled from Ash's mind as he fled as quickly as possibly, anywhere to get away from the hideous sight.

However, the young boy soon realized that he wasn't going anywhere; the.... creature had the back of his collar tightly in his grasp, and it stood stationary, as if waiting for Ash to actually face it and TELL it something.

However, when he finally found the courage to stop and turn around, Ash COULDN'T say anything: as he was rooted to the spot, so was his mouth, for the time being.

The eyes narrowed even further, and the monster growled slightly, releasing its grip. Perhaps Brock WAS dead, and this THING was simply----

The hand bumped against Ash's head, and rested in the air a moment there, as if in thought.

_Why do they want to run away from me----WHY!?!??!?!!?!? It's me...... can't you see?!?! Don't you KNOW me well enough to know that I'm not DOING this because of me----I'm DOING this because---------_

The hand returned to the creature's side, and all was silent.

At first, Ash was afraid......there were voices in his head? The last time he checked, he was perfectly sane. Taking the motion as a signal for him to run, Ash gave out a yelp and began to run. It took him a full three seconds to realize that Brock was speaking to him... telepathically... Shakily, he halted his retreat and whirled around, eyes wide.

"Brock?!"

The other eyes widened, and the mouth opened in an effort to speak.

"Grrrraaarrghh.........!!!!!"

However, strangely, there were no words.......

"Hey, you're tryin' to SAY something, aren'tcha?"

There was a.... sweatdrop, dark as the creature's flesh, as one of the creature's eyebrows went up as it gave an exasperated nod. One of Ash's "many" talents seemed to be his unique ability to point out the obvious.

Now that he had gotten it through his head, Ash was determined to help the monster, though he was severely tempted to do otherwise. But for the time being, he was trying to be on the Pokémon's side.

"Whatever you're tryin' to say, I'm listenin'!"

But before either of them could further this, a tremendous din shattered the otherwise silent daytime air with quaking force, and it reverberated throughout for the space of a minute before it died down. Ash blinked. The sound was familiar.....frighteningly so. He looked around in fear, and the roar was heard again.

Then it hit him where it was coming from and what it was.

He gulped.

Team Rocket Headquarters.

The monster......

Brock stared upwards, squinting against the painful sun.

_What....... WAS........ that..........? _He looked downwards a moment and drew his breath haltingly. _It..... wasn't human..... sounded kinda like.... me..... but.... it's someone--------LIKE--------me....._

Brock began to run. He was running like the wind towards that sound, but he didn't know why, didn't know how, but all he knew was that it was someone like HIM.

Maybe..... he wasn't alone.

*~*~*

**DMB: WHOA!!! I FINALLY proofread this!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!**

**DMB: (B9T voice) About bloody time....**

**DMB: Silence, monkey!!! ::Smacks self.::**

**Errr.... right. ^^;;; Anyway, YES, this chapter was EXTREMELY melodramatic and corny---and LONG. Twenty-three pages, to be exact. YES, it droned on and on and on during boring scenes, and YES, we know that you want us to show people OTHER than Giovanni and Brock. Bear with us. Chapter 10 and 11 are so full of action that you won't know blood from wine, and we'll have some glorious RUFUS!!!**

**Anyway, if you haven't reviewed.... C'mon!!! Nine's the charm!!!!! ::Innocent grin.::**

**TO BE CONTINUED......**


	10. Death to the Demoness

**End of A Reality **

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**Rating:** Changed to "R" due to gratuitous violence, gore, and other blood-lust induced scenes. :) No lemon. Phew.

*~*~*

_Man 1: Alive?_

_Man 2: Dead._

_Man 1: Wh--what're you doing?!_

_Man 2: Why--bringing him back, of course. But.....I'll need your help, obviously. If not enough of his tissues are found, there is no way he can return._

_Man 1: Let me clarify something. You want to----revive---a dead---colony of cells? Why on earth would you--?_

_Man 2: You dare to think yourself a scientist? Even one of this order? Why would you doubt the possibility?_

_Man 1: Why?? Because---restoration is something--imagined, made-up... face it! It's a fairy tale!!_

_Woman 1: It would be lucrative if we could pull it off...._

_Man 1: It's been done before. This very..colony of cells..did it before. The end-product of it was a complete success. _

_Man 1: So..maybe you're right. But why THIS pile of alien guts? Lord knows how long it's been rotting here. Why don't we just leave it dead, and find a---fresher one?_

_Man 2: .....Because... because......_

_Woman 1: Wait..there's someone here. Of all the nerve.....they're listening in on our conversation!_

_Man 2: Do what you must._

_Man 3: Hey---stop--no!!_

_Sound of gunshots._

_Man 3: N-no..........._

--Conversation tape-recorded on the Sister Ray platform in Sector 8. Tape recorder was found smashed and in the hand of a dead man. An autopsy shows that several bullets were fired into his chest. The tape was salvaged.

*~*~*

**Chapter 10: **Death to the Demoness

*~*~*

"Gone." Butch stated bluntly as his dark brown eyes remained fixed on the pitiful rubble that were the remains of the fallen headquarters. "Whatevuh that thing was, it suhe made mincemeat out of the place."

Jessie stood gasping for air, having run out of the building in a hurry. She looked at the worthless heap of concrete and metal, and just stared, too exhausted to do anything else. Then, she suddenly realized something. 

"James..........where's Meowth?"

In their zeal to escape, they had forgotten the little cat. 

James had been heaving and wheezing, his hands placed firmly on his knees as he bent downwards to catch his breath. He realized the same thing at the same time and said at the exact same moment as Jessie:

"Jessie.......... where's Meowth?" 

"You----didn't---see him?!" The volume of her voice escalated in stark fear. Only escape had been on their minds. Everything was discarded in exchange for getting the hell out of there, but had they abandoned Meowth in the process? 

"..... I thought YOU took him!!!!!!" James exclaimed, jumping up in the air in fright. He grabbed onto Jessie's hands and cried: "He stayed behind to help that Persian... AHHHHH!!! What if.... that.... that..... THING..... got him!??!?!?"

She simultaneously grabbed James' hands, and her eyes grew twice their normal size in equal fear. "Don't worry, James---Meowth can make it!! He's part of Team Rocket, after all!!"

Butch wasn't willing to share her optimism. "Face it, you two. He's kaput." 

"Kaboom." Cassidy chimed in rather dully, turning towards her rivals. "If Team Rocket Headquarters--" she jerked her thumb rather haltingly towards the smouldering pile of rubble. "--could be destroyed so easily by that MONSTER, imagine what happened to that no-good, bad-mannered, over-indulgent, son-of-a-kitty!!!"

Jessie's face twisted into a snarl and she threw James away, whirling on Cassidy, her pupils two azure flames that towered in her eyes of evident disgust. "Why, you--!!!! What about your overgrown rat?! It was probably too fat and slow to run away!!" 

Cassidy grinned wickedly and pulled a PokéBall off of her belt. "Or perhaps not. If you learned about the.... wonders of modern technology, I'm sure YOU would get a lot more DONE for Team Rocket!!!!"

"Grrr...how much can YOU do in JAIL?!" Jessie retaliated, her face contorted with rage as she faced her rival, lines of fury forming on her brow. 

"GRRRR!!!!" Cassidy leaned forward, her nose an inch away from Jessie's. "At least we commit enough FELONIES to actually be PUT in JAIL!!!!!!!!" 

"Oh, really?!! They don't jail you for felonies anymore, they kill you in front of a crowd! Your felonies are just MISDEMEANORS!" 

Butch rolled his eyes. Sometimes... maybe SOMETIMES... those two went on for an ungodly amount of time. 

"Oh, boy," James said dryly, sweatdropping. "Here we go again.... Women are so..... petty." He sighed and then looked up towards Butch. He suddenly grit his teeth and stood to his feet. 

"HEY!!!!! YOU'VE BEEN GOING TO _MY_ HAIRDRESSER!!!!"

Butch ripped his gaze away from the demolished headquarters and pressed his rather thin face against James' soft one, and protested, "He isn't just youh haihdressuh!!"

It was plain to see that Butch was not the best on comebacks. Though Jessie and Cassidy were evenly matched in terms of wit and flair, Butch was somewhat lacking in either. Luckily, James was even worse than his nemesis. Upon hearing Butch's words, he lowered his fist and blinked in a bewildered manner. "He?! I thought it was a SHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

Cassidy's mouth gaped open, as if shocked to hear such vulgar language from Jessie. Then, she exploded.

"OH YEAH!??!?! Well at least MY MOTHER DIDN'T GO AND GET HERSELF KILLED ON A _HIKING TRIP!!!!!!!"_

Jessie didn't continue the line of petty insults. Her eyes grew hot and angry, and she couldn't say another word, but her clenched teeth and narrowed eyes said enough. The issue of her mother was a personal thing. Once one intruded on sacred ground, the "fun" was over. It was no longer comical, but a matter grave and heavy.

"Wellllll!?!?" Cassidy grinned, her hands behind her back as she leaned forward mockingly. She knew she'd hit a sore spot. 

"Go to HELL, Cassidy!!" Jessie spat in pure hatred, and she stormed away, so surrounded by her swelling anger that she didn't feel the muddy ground rumbling underneath her. 

And this was the time that Meowth decided to barge in.

"WAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" The small Pokémon cried, dodging this way and that and finally lunging behind James in a mad rush to get out of something's way. "HE----IT'S COMIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

"Meowth!??!" James exclaimed, as his eyes shot up with joy, sparkling their emerald color. "YOU'RE ALIVE!!!!!!" 

As quickly as clouds replace the sun, Jessie's face lit up in a burst of happiness, forgetting Cassidy's malicious hit below the belt. "Meowth!!!"

Butch stood up again, looking around, wary. "What's comin'?" 

Another rumble caused the mud to leap up and then fall in a crawling tide, coating the permeated ground with earth. 

Meowth was shuddering in fear, and a roar was heard, a deafening roar, as he looked up into the sky that was happenning to be doing just the opposite of Jessie's face; it was darkening.

"The......"

Another rumble.

"The....."

A long, low growl.

"The....."

The mud heaved and rippled, and finally overturned as a hideous reptile rose out of the mud, its flesh completely soaked in the wet dirt. As some of it dripped off from its face, the eyes were revealed... the hideous scarlet quadrilaterals that glowed with the fierce intensity of a blazing forest fire. The growl that had failed to die erupted into a terrifying roar, the sound waves of which caused more of the mud to cascade off, exposing the flesh, that was the color of a starless night, of blackened coal and possibly of death itself. The immense size of the creature was only intensified with the temporary mask of mud, and as it lashed its spiked tail, the reptillian appendage swinging back and forth instinctively. Without warning, it walked foward, its clawed feet sinking into the mud that it seemed to have sprung out of. It fixated its hostile eyes at the Rockets, and roared again, seemingly more out of instinct than want. 

James stared.

"IT'S THE MONSTER!!!!!!"

Cassidy's eyes widened.

"IT'S THE CREATURE!!!!!!!!"

Jessie gaped.

"IT'S THE FREAK!!!!!!!!"   
  
Butch could only stare at one point in the plane at first. And at first glance, it didn't seem as if there was anything wrong with him. But his pale skin got paler still, looking like the wax of a candle. The color waned until he had become completely white, and then his eyes rolled upwards, and he fainted unceremoniously into the mud. 

Meowth sighed rather calmly.

"It's the Boss." 

Jessie immediately grew angry, and she yelled at the little cat for his ill-timed humor. "Meowth, don't make jokes like that!!!" 

"It ain't a joke, Jess," Meowth nodded at the beast after a moment of silence, and sighed. "It's him," even as he continued to hold onto James' pantleg for dear life. 

"It...isn't...a joke?!?!" Jessie repeated in disbelief, having a hard time grasping the frank truth. Even for all her boldness, she uncharacteristically took a timid, hesitant step foward, and looked into the gleaming eyes of her "boss".

"Sir?"

Its countenance, still dripping in watered dirt, did not change its expression. It didn't even nod. It seemed lost.....lost in the destruction of its ego. 

There was something else there as well, dripping from the monster. Human blood......that mixed and blended with the unearthly liquid that was its own.

James was stiff, only able to stare at the.... creature, which seemed strangely placid and confused at the same time. The same creature that had come close to killing HIM. Cassidy gawked for a few minutes, trying to grasp her bearings just as much.... However, being the second brashest of the group, she made the mood-swinging move.

"........Sir, permission to ask a question?" Without waiting for the answer, she took a deep breath and screeched:

"..............WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!??!?!?!?!?!?"

It didn't answer.....God only knew if it could even COMPREHEND her perfectly intelligible speech. It gave an anguished snarl, but it couldn't have meant anything. It was just a sound, after all. And a sound, in its primitive state, could mean anything: there were no syllables to differentiate one statement from the other.

".....Meowth, you've gone crazy," James began backing away from the beast, dragging the small cat along with him. "That can't POSSIBLY be-----"

This was when they saw Persian. 

Jessie could hardly believe her eyes. She, James, and Meowth had seen the cat, and it was usually in mint condition, its fur glossy and shimmering and its head held high... but this pitiful excuse for roadkill was something else. Its right eye socket was surrounded in dried blood, and a good part of its fur was gone, coated in corrosive saliva. Surely this was the monster's doing. It COULDN'T have been their boss who had done this barbaric thing.

Persian dragged itself along the soft ground until its claws finally lost their traction and it plunged face-first into the mud. The cat's meow was a sharp minor key, and the chord struck was so dismal that even a human could discern its unmistakable meaning. It approached the reptillian monster with unsteady gait, and the latter picked it up again in its monstrous arms, and for a moment, its eyes lost their ferocious appearance, and became tender while gazing at the cat. That was proof enough. 

James stared for a moment, and then fainted right beside Butch. Cassidy's fists were being held in midair as she gazed at the freakish visage in front of her. Meowth could only smile ruefully, walking out of James' way as the blue-haired Rocket crashed upon the ground.

"What'd I tell ya? It's da Boss." 

"James!! This isn't the time to be fainting!!" But considering the circumstances, Jessie decided not to wake him up for once, and leave him to his peace, because what he would see when he woke up could probably be worse. Instead she looked down at Meowth, and pointed to the "boss". "What happened?!" 

The small cat shrugged. "I dunno."

Cassidy shook the shock off rather quickly and whirled upon Meowth. "You DON'T KNOW?!?!?!?" She resumed her shrieking. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHY THE BOSS IS LIKE A FREAK OR WHY HE DESTROYED THE HEADQUARTERS, OR WHY HE CAN'T TALK, OR WHY HIS PERSIAN LOOKS LIKE A DEAD POSSUM, OR WHY------" 

"Grrr... shut up, Cassidy! If Meowth doesn't know, he doesn't know!!" Jessie growled, glaring her rival in the eyes. For the time being, she had forgotten that Butch and James were currently chasing after yellow birdies in their dreams.

The hideous creature had its attention focused elsewhere. Somewhere, a roar was heard, a roar that echoed within its skull and brought up a hundred regrettable memories. What was...... the other... monster coming for? For revenge? Or to simply find out what was happening? Only time would tell------and that time seemed to be now.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind, similar to the gale that Ivy had felt while waiting for "Gemini". There was another roar heard from overhead, and then another, one after the other from the same beast. Then, there was another gust as a dark streak passed over them, and then disappeared into the darker side of the clearing that had once housed TRHQ,

_Whoever---whatever---you are... Come alone._

Zero-X seemed drawn to the telepathic voice, and it left despite Persian's weak protests. The monster followed the sound of the roars, keeping its head down so as not to be blinded by the merciless light, and headed towards the clearing, that stank of burnt flesh and the odor of blood. It then halted, and its crimson eyes darted apprehensively, watching for the owner of the voice to come out and show itself. 

The voice came first.

_What are you? Where are you from? _

Silence. The reptile raised its disfigured arm hesitantly and motioned to the smoking heap of what was left of the grand Team Rocket headquarters. 

There was a long moment of silence. A shadow slowly walked out from behind a pile of rubble. Two bright points of red light seemed to disappear, then narrow, then intensify with anger.

_...............What did you say? _

Zero-X again pointed with its clawed hand, that was rinsed in human blood, to the pile of concrete....and bodies, corpses strewn across the wreckage like festive bulbs of death. A curious growl arose from its vocal chords, and it watched the swelling shadow that had appeared with undivided attention. 

The shadow paused, then walked forward, slowly, haltingly. _......They created you.... here....? ....Or are you like me?_

The muddy lizard turned its revolting visage away in shame. How could it possibly answer this higher being that obviously posessed a higher intelligence? 

_.......Everyone's scared of me._ There was a long, low sigh. _Even my friends think I'm a freak..... What about you? Can you even talk? You don't even know English, do you....? _

Zero-X shook its head several times, indicating "no" to every question. The shadow struck vague familiarity in its brain, but it couldn't place a name.....

_But.... wait....._ The shadowy figure came even closer, outstretching a clawed hand in curiousity. _If you just answered my question........ you shook your head......_

The red orbs of the smaller being widened, and it ran forward into plain sight.

It was Gemini.

Giovanni's..... "weapon".

_You were human, too, then! What'd that Ivy do to YOU....!? Are you another Pokémon that bastard made? _

The "bastard" suddenly felt sick. It gave out a distorted growl, and attempted to walk away from the former "weapon", that actually was more intelligent than him..... how the tides turned. How they turned and drowned the one who was so far away from the shore. The forlorn irony was too much to absorb: it turned tail.

_But----hey!!!! Wait!!!!!! Why are you.... running..... away......?!?!_

Gemini chased after him, gritting its teeth. _I swear, I'm not gonna hurt you!!!!!!!! I mean----I was scared of everything too----I----is it because I can talk?_

There was a moment of silence.

_Yeah.... that's what it is, isn't it?! Well.... you know, it's just.... thinking. Just think the words, and.... and pretend you're speaking them._

Brock gave out a growl, and dodged in front of what he considered to be "his own kind".

_Try it!!! _

The larger reptile felt strange, uncomfortable doing what it was told, yet it was so normal, so normal to submit.... It closed its flaming eyes, concentrating on the words.....those words that he had used so much in the past, and which were now more important than ever. He formed the syllables in his brain, each letter connecting to another to form a word, and finally, being brought together in a complete sentence.

_I'm your enemy, not an ally._

Brock's eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward, leaning in and.... sniffing the beast as he circled it. There was something.... unpleasantly familiar, a subtle odor of cigars and something else---the smell that is detected when bringing a crisp dollar bill to one's nose. _What do you mean? _

The scaled beast could narrowly see a shadow circling it, the dark demon-like creature placed against the hateful light, scrutinizing it with his blood -colored eyes. It couldn't take it. The larger monster snarled savagely, its acid-laced tongue whipping out of its acrid jaws, and it brought its clawed hand foward, trying to ward the other off. But the ebony-colored demon still persisted. It growled, unnerved by the Pokémon's very presence, and tried to flee again. But the light...it was so strong......he couldn't escape the other's blood-red eyes. It whirled upon the other and unleashed a roar from the depths of its hideous throat. The tone was almost...demanding. 

_Stay away.......Gemini!!! I----I destroyed you once, and I'll do it again!_

There could be no doubt in the devil-tailed Pokémon's anguished mind who had been drowned in that inescapable pool of inhumanity. There was a long moment of silence as the smaller, humanoid monster went rigid, its claws clenched at its sides as it tensed and stepped back. The look in those crimson eyes was of pure, undeniable disbelief.

_But------------NO!!!!!!! It can't----YOU can't----------HOW COULD----?!?!??! _

_You doubt it's true? _The bulkier creature took an awkward, slanted step foward, like a drunkard, for it was still blinded by the abominable light that still pervaded the area and illumined it with relentless brilliance. It brought its claws into a fist.

_Ivy....that......bitch....._ Its roar was perturbed, knowing that the name of the twisted villain was not just any other name. The hulking lizard dug the claws into its palm. The dark, opaque blood flowed in divergent streams. _This....blood....._

Zero-X inexplainably glared at the humanoid Pokémon: one would think that it would have been the other way around, after the unspeakable horrors that it had put the other through. _I didn't need a transfusion...._

Gemini continued to stare, too consumed by horror, shock, and even.... fear, and his anger refused to rise. _You.........CAN'T.......be......._ The mental voice was weak. It was pure denial in which the smaller creature was acting; the larger creature's behavior, aura, and its own inaudible voice, that had forever been muted by its inhuman vocal chords.....

They all belonged to the man whom he had come to loathe so dearly. But the man was dead. Killed by its own impetuosity. What stood in his place was a monster that defied the limits of horrific nightmares. A gleam from its mouth arose: the long, cruel fangs, that hung like stalactities from a cavern. Brock gulped on the remains of blood that were at the back of his throat, and he found that he was backing up into a tree to avoid the hideous visage, the horrible abomination.... For a moment, even HE forgot about his own deformities as he gazed upon those of..... Giovanni. The demon Pokémon DID have good reason to avoid the other: if looks were lethal, he would be dead. The monster was a creation of the horrors of twisted nightmares, made into gruesome reality, a fearsome predator that fed upon the species that created it.

There was a long silence for a moment, as crimson glared into vermilion. Then, a cold laugh, a growl of chuckling irony.

_So, what happened to YOU? _Brock sneered, bitter with hatred and suppressed anger_. Did you land in a vat of acid or something? Maybe Ivy thought she could make some money by selling you off to the circus.... _

The larger monster's inhuman eyes radiated colors of inexpressible shame, and it shoved its head foward, roaring into the other's defiant face full of righteous hatred. _That is NOT funny, Gemini!! _It clamped its jaws shut as it bit the air, the fangs clipping together like a bear trap. By the way it was acting, there was infallible truth in Brock's thoughts: Giovanni was truly an animal. 

_It wasn't supposed to be._ Another grin, a bit more haughty than Brock's emotions should have been. _You mean---Ripley's got to Ivy before Barnum? How much did they offer? Two, three, a HUNDRED million? _

_You're trying my patience, boy._ The other growled threateningly, its mind racing. Something was troubling it. Usually it would have come up with some sort of retaliation worthy of note by now. But.... there was nothing. It brought its claws to its massive head, digging them into his flesh. Its thoughts were crawling along at staggered speeds. What was wrong with his mind????

_Boy....?_ Brock's eyes suddenly narrowed, losing any kind of sarcasm they might have held. _BOY??!?!?!?!?!?! HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And here I thought I was a "WEAPON" with no "EMOTIONS", which doesn't have any "CIVIL RIGHTS" and which is only meant to "WREAK HAVOC AND SPREAD TERROR ACROSS_THE_POKÉMON_WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!_"

There was a roar of anguish and hate, as the smaller monster dared to step forward, bringing itself but one INCH from the lizard's flaring nostrils. The sarcasm was biting and corrosive, and Zero-X could do little but growl in distress. It didn't have anything to say. What COULD it say? Technically, it couldn't SAY anything. This... new life had completely silenced it. 

_WELL!?!??!?!_ Brock screamed mentally into the other's face. _SHOULD I??!??!?!?! I'll bet I could slam YOU against a tree just like I did with TOMMY, HUH?!??!?!?! YEAH!!!!!! JUST_LIKE_WITH_TOMMY!!!!!!! _

A pang of guilt rang through the larger creature's blackened heart, but it tried to keep that rare emotion hidden, and it snarled viciously, attempting to block out this madness. But the haunting words of Brock's tormented soul were persistent; it echoed through its reduced brain. 

_You hear that!??!?!?!_ Brock stepped backwards, his fists clenched at his sides as he roared in accordance with his words. _YOU'RE IN THE SAME BOAT NOW, ROCKET!!!!!!!!!!!! _

It did not want to admit that it was true. But there was no denying it: it was on the identical ship, that was sinking...sinking......into the depths of inhumanity, never to emerge...the ship would disintegrate at the very bottom, leaving the both of them trapped forever in Hell. The lizard gave a weak growl, and turned its ugly visage away..away from the equal that had once been its inferior. 

_..........So._ Brock suddenly calmed, and he leaned against a tree, looking into the foreboding darkness around them, punctured here and there by painful light. _I guess she gave you a name....? _

_Yes. _The ebony lizard hesitated, and its eyes assumed a depressed, subdued glow, weakened by the persistent shreds of light. _Zero-X. If you can call a letter and a number a name....._It growled feebly in shame.

_Huh._ The other continued to look away, his eyes darting here and there across the forest. _Your REAL name probably wasn't any better. _

_What, may I ask, does that supposed to mean?!_ It raised its scale-covered head, the scarlet tongue drying up the sea green drool that continuously dripped down its lower jaw.

_I'm not sure----but unless I've been speaking the wrong way for half my life, you should be saying "What IS that supposed to mean?" My, my, Zero-X.... you've changed since I last saw you._ Brock finally looked towards the monster with a strangely.... superior gaze, full of bitter hate which was causing him to act so... unBrockishly. 

Zero-X hardly noticed the other's sarcasm, buried under the oppressive mound of hate. It hated this feeling of being completely outdone .....especially to someone who had so recently been its own Pokémon. It hated it...it was so new, so strange, so inconcievable. And it HATED it.  
It wanted to strike the other down: the urge was inescapable, unavoidable. But it was weighed down with the indomitable yoke of shame.

_That is not my name!! I am Giovanni!!!_ It roared in unision with its thoughts, and brought its claws downward, but only succeeding in slashing the air: the light impaired its sight. 

_NOW look at yourself. Some kind of HUMAN you are. So, MASTER., what should I do NOW? Destroy more homes? Kill another bunch of children or more? MURDER ONE OF MY OTHER BROTHERS?!??!?!?!?!? And Gemini isn't MY name either, so you can call me BROCK, if you don't mind._ Brock bared his teeth and snarled. _You got me into this mess, so you'd might as well treat me fairly. _

_No.....I REFUSE to call a POKÉMON by a HUMAN name!_ The lizard hissed obstinately, folding its scaled arms in stubborn defiance......stupidly so. It was too feeble-minded to realize the hypocrisy of his protests, and surrounded itself with the false shield of refusal to accept the laughing truth.

Brock arched an eyebrow in exasperated manner, gritting his teeth at the utter stupidity of the creature before him.

_You ARE a Pokémon, idiot._ His eyes narrowed. _So don't try and call me a name that I wasn't born with.... because you're just the same..... You're just a hypocrite in denial. _

_No.....I'm not a Pokémon.....a hypocrite, maybe, but not a Pokémon........_ One would think why it would continue to deny it. There was no doubt that it was not human. But it was interpreting it differently: not in the present, but in the past. And why did he vehemently deny it?

Because it was beginning to doubt. 

Because of the blood.

The reptile looked down at its rough, scaled arm: completely the opaque color of ebony. And underneath that, the same color. For all those years that black blood flowed. Was it merely Ivy's doing, or was it something else? Something that went further back? It couldn't deny that currently, it was a Pokémon. It COULD deny that a long time before, that it was the same. 

_Not a Pokémon?!?_ Brock was oblivious to his enemy's mentality, and scoffed at the statement. _Look at yourself!!! You're anything BUT human!!!!! If you call ME a Pokémon.................... I AM human!!!! I WAS human, at least........... And I'll change myself...... back!!! I know I will!!! _Brock nodded vigorously, his eyes wavering down towards the ground, where they stopped in their tracks. Giovanni only seemed to notice his words.. 

_Change yourself.....back? How will you do that?_ The mental question wasn't of its usual mockery, condescension, flaunting of superiority, or anything else save for an inquiry. It walked foward, leaving enormous clawprints in the scattered mud. 

Brock was... looking down at a puddle at his feet. The surface was relatively calm, and he could--for the first time--see his.... reflection.

Pointed, elf-like ears.

Scaled face.

Black, bloodstained lips.

Vampiric teeth.

The blood-red eyes.....

The EYES......

He stared into his own eyes, his own turmoil.... no... those COULDN'T be his EYES, those demonic orbs of RED that burned of their own pain and desire.... NO!!! It was impossible... IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!

It couldn't be him... Brock... maybe ugly enough so that girls wouldn't go out with him, but a MONSTER? Never..... never...... No, it couldn't-----

He slowly, shakily brought a hand to his cheek.

The monster did the same.

He took the same hand and slowly ran it through his matted, filthy hair.

The monster copied his motions exactly.

And then, as he saw a tear form in the eye of the abomination on the surface of the water, and crawl down and fall off of the creature's chin.....

The surface of the water was disrupted by a single drop. 

The other creature watched the awakened surface as the ripples diverged outward toward the edge of puddle, distorting the already frightening reflection of the younger mutation. Had it been in its heart, it would regret its actions entirely, but there was something deep in the coal black chambers of that heart that kept it from swallowing its pride and apologizing for everything....all the pain that it had inflicted on the undeserving victim: every scream, every terror-filled moment that would stay with Gemini until his dying day, and every physical and emotional insult. But it simply could not. 

_.........I......WILL.........get my.......my......BODY..........BACK....... _Those eyes darted up towards Giovanni's, filled with self-loathing and self-fearing. _I will. I swear I will. I don't care if I die in the process-----I SWEAR I'll get back to normal......... I SWEAR!!!!!!!!_

_Ha. How will you supposed to accomplish that?_ It locked its own blood-colored eyes with Brock's, and for a moment, reverted to its normal, arrogant mentality, trying to forget its own plight. 

Brock seemed to be too distressed to correct the other creature's grammar. _I..... I'll do it..... there HAS to be a way..... back.... right?_ He looked down at the puddle once more, staring at.... that.... CREATURE which couldn't possibly be him. _I mean-------my-----REAL------body-----I'm not a freak._

He growled down at the puddle, his eyes burning.

_I'm_NOT_a_FREAK._

He gave out a snarl and plunged his foot into the puddle, destroying the mocking reflection.

_HOW DARE YOU!??!?! STUPID WATER!!!!! I DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!!!! I   
NEVER HAVE AND I NEVER WILL--------NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

At this point there were tears streaming down his face, as he snarled and hissed at the puddle that was being mercilessly torn and splashed through by his claws.

_I'M NOT..... A..... MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

_Look at who is in denial, now.... _The monster began to laugh coarsely, in brisk growls, conveying its visible disgust at the self-loathing creature. Brock was only lying to himself, and the lies weren't changing anything. He was still a monster. A monster that was capable of massive destruction, and up till now had only been used for that purpose. But now....what was left? 

"Gemini" stared down at the empty, muddy ground for a moment._ 'Cause.... I'm not..... I wasn't....... I WAS a human.... and----and I still AM!!!!! ......Right.....? _He slowly fell to his knees, his arms being the only supports between his head and the ground. _I've killed.... a lot.... of people, and now my own... FRIENDS think that I'm.... some kind of.... stupid.... animal.... But I'm not..... I can think.... just as well.... I CAN......... It's just these stupid.... stupid...... VOICES----ringing---TELLING me what to do......... WHY WON'T THEY STOP!??!?_

The creature gave out a choked snarl as he put his claws to the sides of his head.

_WHY_WON'T_THEY_STOP?!?!? _

_Don't listen to them._ It was an easy hypothesis for Giovanni to make. There were no voices going through its own head: it wasn't mentally tormented: definitely disillusioned, and carrying a wounded ego, but hardly any concept of Brock's agony...that scorching agony burning in his young soul......at least............not yet.  
  
It turned to look, past the hated light, at the demolished remains of the headquarters. It scented human blood...death that it had caused..that struck its black heart again, and again it felt guilt, and it no longer felt proud, needless to say no longer trying to make light of Brock's anguish. 

However, there was something else that could be scented....

Brock slowly, slowly, raised his head. His nostrils were flaring, and his eyes were narrowing as he struggled to his feet.

_Do you smell that? It's kind of like...... lysol. _He whirled around._ I think we'll have company, soon.... _

It nodded its head sluggishly, taking its hellish eyes away from the site of devestation. It rotated its girth around, facing the hostile scent. That odor of.....whatever it was, was bitterly sweet, hiding behind a false veil of nicety. But both knew that Satan was behind that facade. 

There was the soft sound of singing from not-so-far off. "Mary had a little lamb.... little lamb..... little lamb..... Mary had a little lamb.... with blood as black as coal...... Hm......"

Brock staggered backwards, nearly tripping into Zero-X.

_It's...... HER.... she's headed this way..........._

"Everywhere that Mary went.... Mary went.... Mary went..... Everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go......."

_She's.... she's..... _A dull light slowly overtook Brock's eye, and his head nodded forward as his muscles relaxed. He was reminded vaguely of the Pied Piper.... and then his mind was gone.

"Grrrraarrghh......" He began to step forward, searching for the source of the voice in a trance. _Mistress...... _The voice was dull, monotonous as Brock marched trudged forward through the deep mud. The poor boy didn't even seem to know where he was going.... _Mistress.... I'm here...... With another.... we are ready to serve, Mistress... _  
  
Boy, what has gotten into you? Zero-X's red eyes widened with heightening fear at Brock's sudden submissiveness, and heaved itself foward through the soaked soil, hurling itself blindly into the light in sluggish pursuit of the hypnotized mutant. Its reptillian tongue hung out of its mouth as it growled to get the other's attention.

"RROARGHHHHH........" _Gemini, come to your senses!! _

The smaller shape was still advancing to the clutches of Satan.__

_Won't you listen to me?! Stop before-----_It advanced, and halted, overcome by immense mental pain that attacked all surfaces of its reptillian brain. It felt its free thought weaken, buckle under the pressure of this invisible aura that radiated from its wicked source.

_Before----....._

And then it left entirely.  
  
"....Followed her to school one day...... school one day.... school one day.... followed her to school one day....."

Ivy slowly appeared before the two mutants... not that they could see her, of course. Perhaps the monsters WERE thinking underneath the mindless facade, but when Ivy began to walk towards them.... there didn't seem to be much they could do. The evil woman smiled at the both and then walked towards the larger of the two.... "lambs".

"But..... blood......"

She put her hand on the muzzle of the beast, and she leaned her head towards its face, her pupils drilling into its retinas.

"Was against..... the rules........" 

She smiled, looking deceivingly innocent. "Then they threw him out, didn't they? And he didn't follow me anymore.... now you will, Vanni.... Zero-X.... you'll protect me forever.... you have no choice in the matter.... yes, always by my side..... You'll never abandon poor little Belle again, will you?" She stroked the side of the lizard's scaled face with an underlying, dangerous tone in her voice. "Will you?" 

It growled softly, without any will to resist, at the caressing. Had it been in its right mind, it would squirm and protest, but it had no other alternative, being completely mindless. Thus saying, the giant creature suddenly rolled over onto its back, wriggling like a massive, oversized puppy who liked getting patted on the head: it was a pitiful sight that only caused more pleasure on Ivy's part, as she stood back and watched the huge.... lizard.... act as if it had come from the pet shop.

"....Hm," after a few moments, the smile dimmed and she crossed her arms in a bit of disappointment. "It isn't as fun when you are mindless...." She snapped her fingers. "REMEMBER----and just to be safe, OBEY." 

At the sound of Ivy's slender fingers rubbing against the other, sending a resounding crack through its mind, Zero X sprang awake, and the empty matter of its brain was once again filled with consciousness. It threw its head upwards, releasing a roar of unrestrained hatred. Its crimson eyes, now filled with disconcerting awareness, fell upon the woman that had destroyed him.

_IVY._

Automatically, the giant lizard attempted to charge, only to find itself planted to the spot._ What is this?_! Its eyes flared up in heightened despair as it desperately tried to move foward, but it was somehow...frozen, as if only Ivy's word could bring it to walk or to run. It was as if she was the puppeter and it was attatched to the strings, or she was a tamer and it was a bear at the end of the chain. She was in charge of its destiny. 

Brock simply stood there, his body rigid, his eyes dull and focused on somewhere far away as Ivy continued the torment.

"Awww, Vanni.... You awake? I'm just having a little fun, is all......." She giggled and continued to stroke the frozen monster's face. "You WILL always protect me, won't you....? From ANYTHING?" 

_Never!!_ A tremendous roar leaped up from its marred vocal chords, but that was all it could do: make those animal sounds in depreciation of Ivy's wanton mistreatment. But it could do little else besides that: its sister had it in the palm of her womanly hand. Both it and the boy. 

"Really?" Ivy frowned at the roar. Although she couldn't hear the monster's thought-speech, she assumed that the guttural cry wasn't a positive one. She backed away from the monster. "Then.... I suppose.... you will need to be disciplined, eh?"

She looked towards a gap in the trees, through which the silhouettes of several familiar Rockets and two felines could be made out. "Kill them. Then we'll see how cocky you truly are....." 

_No.....I don't want to murder...anymore.....not them...HAVE MERCY!!!!!!_ Its mind screamed as Ivy's command moved its muscles on their own, and independent of its brain, pushed the beast towards the humans and the two feline Pokémon...charging across the ground, the mud leaping up behind it and splattering down with each scrape of the claws against the ground, hurling it over land towards the unaware Rockets, its own employees, to send them to their premature demise. 

*~*~*

"Jess, are you SURE the Boss went THIS way?" James was whining, leaning against a stick between his hands. "Maybe we've been going the wrong direction the whole time!!!!!"

"Shut up, bonehead!" Cassidy snapped backwards at the blue-haired man staggered forward. "I'm SURE that JESSIE would be leading us in the right direction, or else she would most obviously be MENTALLY IMPAIRED...." 

Jessie whirled her head around, her dark blue eyes boring into her rival's violet ones."Shut your mouth, Cassidy! You wouldn't know north from south on a compass!" 

"OH, YEAH?!??!?"

Meowth sighed and looked towards Persian. "Dose humans can shure be annoyin' sometimes.... Anyway, do YOU know where da Boss is?" 

"Mreowwwww......" _No....._ It padded foward, stopping occasionally to nurse its scarred visage. A few more steps foward. It raised its furred head, hissing softly. _Master...?_

Persian quickened its pace, leaving its round tracks in the mud, that was drying with the intensity of the sun. It emitted excited meows as it sensed the presence of its monstrous owner, and a slow walk broke into a limping run.

"Hey....." James blinked at the larger cat. "I think the Persian is onto something!!!!!"

"Wait up for-------!!!!!!!!" Meowth rushed after the other feline, below the branches, across the fallen leaves, through the tall trees, and into a clearing, where he witnessed a sight straight from the destruction of the TRHQ. 

The human Rockets stopped in front of the decimated structure alongside Meowth, with Persian near the hulking skeleton of the massive building, looking upwards with its one eye. It mewed weakly, feeling its master's presence everywhere, but unable to find it.   
And then, like a flash of lightning on the horizon, it was there. The ebony-hued beast, its eyes engulfed by the controlled aura, but within, its mind begging and pleading it to spare the Rockets. 

But its orders were clear. 

Persian's eye lit up with immense joy as soon as its gaze met the monster's, and it slunk towards the beast with a joyous expression, on the peak of elation. "Mreowww!!" _Master!_

But the kindness was not requited. Though the movement was lumbering and slow to execute, Persian found no time to dodge the colossal blow that struck out its remaining eye. The retinal juices spattered onto the ground, the jelly-like eyeball rolling across the soil. Persian released a screech of complete pain as its eye left its socket, and it stared up blindly, searching with its paws for the violent creature that had just took out its.....ONLY eye. The other Rockets could only stare in absolute shock as the creature outwardly showed no regret for this barbaric action, and it devoured the eye in a gulp, and then rushed upon the eye's owner, and was about to bury its cruel fangs into the Pokémon's chest, beneath where the center of life...the heart, pumped that pulsating liquid of existence...

"RRROOOOAAAAAAAARRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Like a vengeful demon, the other monster was upon it, a black streak in the painful light as it slammed its shoulder spikes into the beast's leathery side, through the flesh and embedding themselves within the ribcage. It continued to fly into the other, until the beast was slammed into the ground and into a boulder. The smaller.... monster, gave out a snarl as it ripped its spikes from the opaque scales of the controlled beast, taking chunks of flesh with them. It then backed away and leapt backwards, landing firmly in front of the VERY shocked and disillusioned band of Rockets.

It then brought up the claws of its right hand, as a sphere of black energy crawled down its neck, through its arm, around its wrist, and into its fist. It gave out another snarl, baring its teeth in aggression. Although it didn't seem to have grasped its bearings enough to speak telepathically, it had recovered enough from Ivy's power to get across a single syllable:

_Don't. _

Jessie stepped backwards, filled with terror at the sight of seeing her...boss being overpowered by the bigger TWERP, that had swiftly pummelled it inot submission: it left her gaping and simultaneously shuddering from terror. A hoarse squeak from Butch didn't change her bewildered expression. There was so much BLOOD.....that frightening black blood that stained the ground, seeping into it like deadly toxins. Persian was very near it, clawing at the air, despite all that had been done to it, still searching for its master. And the latter.....was laying on its side amidst the rubble of boulders that had dispersed when it landed onto it. It was bleeding heavily from the tear in its flesh, and its blood blended with the scales. The light had increased its intensity tenfold due to a dissipating cloud, and it hissed in pain.

_Boy......I have to thank you._

But its thoughts contradicted its words. It rose up again stiffly, trying to regain its footing on the solidified ground. Its tail lashed threateningly, and the blood flowed freely as it planted its arm on the soil.

"He's coming back!" Jessie exclaimed in fright as she latched on to James, too terrified to think about her image this time around. The reptile unlreashed a bellowing roar as it dragged itself back to its opponent, and all the while, its mind racing.

_Gemi-----_It stopped itself, and addressed the other by his proper name. _Brock, stop me..... I cannot resist...... in the name of all that's sacred, STOP ME!!! _

There was a slight hesitation as the smaller creature stared at the charging creature. Ivy.... didn't......want......him to stop the terrible monster from accomplishing the terrible deeds that he had been ordered to do..... But no.... this was a.... justified way to get revenge on this.... other monster, for ordering BROCK to KILL, to DESTROY, to MURDER_IN_COLD_BLOOD.......

_Fine._ Was the staggered, emotionless reply.

Giovanni never knew what hit him. There was a gust of cold wind, and then a stinging stab as claws punctured the flesh of his neck, causing the huge beast to hack and wheeze as it ran. Then another tear of tendons in its tail, a small rip in one of its thigh.... Slowly but surely, "Gemini" was weakening the hulk of teeth and muscle, causing the midnight-black blood to rush into the air, flowing in streams across the wind and then diving into the mud-laden ground. 

_Well done.......... Brock....._ The massive reptile went down into the earth, striking it hard, widening the rupture in its throat walls, as black blood collected around it. It roared in physical agony, but its eyes burned with that mesmerized glare.....it HAD to obey...it HAD to........

The unnatural glow of its eyes intensified, sharply contradicting the sunlight around them, and it heaved itself up, a fountain of blood pouring from its wounds, and came rushing at, not at the Rockets this time, but at its attacker. It gained speed despite the yawning gashes in its leg, throat, and back, driven by a power that wasn't its own. It neared the demon-like creature, closer, and closer, and closer...... 

Until only one lunge separated it from the mutant's head. 

It was then that Brock became paralyzed, staring into those eyes, so controlled by rage, by mindlessness, which masked a perfectly..... well, prioritized mind. At this moment, Brock himself was consumed by fear. His own pupiless eyes were alive with terror as his hands suddenly dropped to his sides, and he stared into the face of his demise.........

"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" A yell was heard, a panicked, rather low-key scream. "NONONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ZERO-X, STOP AT _ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" _

The command fell upon its ears just before the fangs ripped off the deformed head, and losing balance, tumbled onto the earth, leaving the print of its bleeding side in the dirt below. It growled weakly, and its snapped its eyes open upon seeing its Mistress.

Inside, it was burning with unspeakable rage.....and fear.

_Ivy......leave me alone...I want to be free..... even as this.... _**creature_, I'd rather have my own will..... no more blood......_** It turned its red eyes towards its superior, blinking slightly as it growled submissively in acknowledgement of its......owner.  
  
"Hm.... hah-hah-hah..... I forget that you're still in there, Demoni. I suppose you're screaming.... waiting to be let out.... waiting... waiting.... Hah-haaaa.......... I also suppose that."

"GRRRAAARRRRGGHH."

Ivy paused, suddenly rigid as she felt a hot, angered breath at her neck. She turned around. 

"Gemini.... I'm surprised at how quickly you've learned to break from my spells..... unusually fast----but then again...." She smiled secretively. "That isn't a surprise, seeing that-----well------you'll find out for yourself, soon enough. Hm-hm. As will...." She turned around once more. "Zero-X."

It was astounding. She didn't fear either of them in the slightest, even as Brock had broken free, and Giovanni was nearing sanity.....

_What?! What will I-----we--- find out?! _It roared weakly, its heavy breathing ragged as it staggered upwards from the ground, seemingly waiting for the next command, its eyes emanating nothing, but its brain racing, fully aware that Brock had broken free from both mental and physical enslavement, but it was still dominated in the body by that irrepressible will... of its kin. Jessie, James, Butch, Cassidy, Meowth, and Persian faded into hazy objects in the background in its sight: only Gemini and Ivy, amidst the insistent light, were discernible in its view. Its roar intensified, its mind willing its body to break free from this control, straining against the seemingly unbreakable spell, focusing everything it posessed to move again...... 

And then it did. 

It charged for Ivy, its eyes ablaze with anger, and even more so with terrible vengeance. Its animal gaze locked with Ivy's human one, barely meters away from her visage of unflappable confidence.   
  
Ivy's eyes widened as she saw the fury-filled hulk speed towards her at amazing speeds..... Reaching out with its unnaturally large claws...

"GEMINI-----!!!!!" She suddenly screeched, still staring at the abomination as her body turned in the opposite, and she began to run. "GEMIN----UMMPHH!!!!" She grit her teeth as she crashed into something cold and metallic, and she gave out a groan as she fell backwards and looked upwards to the object that blocked her way.

Brock stared back, the glare from his firey eyes seeming colder than the arctic wind.

"..........Ge---GEMINI!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ivy yelled once more, throwing a hand backwards and glaring upwards at the humanoid Pokémon as she pointed towards her attacker. "KILL IT!!!! USE YOUR DARK ATTACKS!!!!"

Silence. Icy, stiff silence.

"....WELL!???!?" Ivy continued, her... completely human blood freezing in her veins partly because of that look.... and partly because of how the sound of Zero-X's roar was quickly greatening..... "ARE YOU GOING TO DISOBEY YOUR   
MISTRESS?!??!?!?"

Another bout of silence from the Pokémon, as it looked downward, its gaze becoming contemplative, thoughtful.

Then, without a growl, a roar, or even a word, it lunged at Ivy, whirled her around, and held her in a headlock. She gasped, she choked, and yelled incoherent curses, until she opened her eyes..... and saw Death incarnated into the visage of her creation.

By all accounts, "fuck" is reported to be her last word. 

It took no visible notice of the shocked stare of horror on Ivy's face as it rammed its horn into her chest, the deadly point smashing the ribcage, drilling into the lungs, puncturing the heart, the spray of blood collecting into the ripped lungs. The horn ceased at nothing, penetrating the back, normal blood spewing out of the gaping wound. The woman was dead on impact.   
It...he raised the corpse upwards in unison with tilting its head, the bloody thing still impaled on the projecting horn.

The Rockets, who had witnessed the whole spectacle, were frozen in dismayed horror. 

It took him three whole minutes to realize what he had done. 

_I...killed...my...sister. _

The.... sister..... herself laid limp from the projecting.... HORN, her still-warm hands dangling over the creature's face and brushing against his eye, as if she continued to haunt him..... torture him in his nightmares forever, EVER more.....

Giovanni then realized..... he had killed her, yes, but it was HOW he had killed her that was so.... REVOLTING. Not a poison, nor a stab, nor an assasination, a gunshot, perhaps even---EVEN a push off a high building-----these were the manners in which murderers accomplished their heinous deeds. But..... he----------IT------had.... IMPALED her..... Of course, soldiers did barbaric things, Vlad the Impaler---hence his name--drank human blood..... But he drank it from a CHALICE. A CUP. He impaled them upon spears, gates, sticks..... But the creature that was now Giovanni...... He had CHARGED. He had used his HORN in the most.......... INHUMAN....... manner possible...... It was not pre-planned, nor pre-meditated..... no..... he had done it in a fit of rage, and had USED animal reflexes, ANIMAL instincts........ 

But then, the question remained....... The question that Ivy, even in the moment of her DEATH, had now planted into his mind, a seed, a seed that, now watered with her own _blood_, spilled by Giovanni, was growing into a ghostly, ghastly question of his nature.

_How_ had he known how to use them?

Indeed---he had been a-----creature for a shorter amount of time even than the boy, and now.... he was..... SKILLED with these alien sensations? It was mind-boggling..... an IMPOSSIBLITY.....

And yet, the dead hand that batted at his eye, that seemed to crawl across his skin like a wave of nauseating realization..... it conveyed the legacy that Ivy would forever leave with him.

_How.....?_

_HOW?_

The single word echoed in his brain, over, and over, and over again. He raised his pupiless eyes, only to zee Ivy's frozen gaze meet with his. The black heart beat erratically in the depths of his heaving chest. Again, that plaguing question that the dangling corpse relentlessly asked him, even with the dark gag of death upon her.

HOW?

The beast's body began to quake, thrown into convulsions, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The air was punctuated by intermittent growls, muffled by the dirt as the monster hurled himself onto the ground, gripping his head, and the brain within, in utter turmoil. It was as if Ivy was ddriving a jackhammer into his skull with that one question. One word of eternal importance, those three letters ringing like funeral bells, their persistent gong driving him...... mad.

Jessie approached the creature, that was now still, on his backside. Her eyes were wide with expectancy.

"Sir?"

Without warning, the creature leaped upwards, the ground below him quivering slightly as he landed. His eyes were consumed with a crazed glare, unrestrained, uncontrolled, as feral as any untamed beast that never knew captivity. From its throat lunged a teriffic roar that pained his own brain.....a brain that was now silent.  
It advanced, charging over the dirt, the sunlight no longer an obstacle as the rage-consumed creature drew nearer to a certain city that had been dealt more than its fair share of punishment..............

*~*~*****

**B9T: Thanks for reading chapter 10. ^^ Warning to all Vincent fans: Hojo is coming.^_^**

**DMB: Hey!!!! I *LIKE* Vincent!!!!**

**B9T: *Glare***

**DMB: Uh... but... Hojo is better... uh... yeah.... ¬.¬ ::Paranoid glance:: Anyway, much, MUCH gore in the next chapter, with many, MANY disturbingly violent scenes. If you don't enjoy imagining death and carnage, don't read ANY MORE of this fic. STOP RIGHT THERE.**

**DMB: .....Ah, hell. Go on. You know you want to. :)**

**TO BE CONTINUED.................**

**P.S. From DMB: I'm officially Cid-obsessed. Wait, did I say OBsessed? Sorry. I meant POSsessed. MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! Uh. Yeah. ^_^;;;;**

**Oh yeah, and guess what?!?!? All development on Kingdom Hearts has been CANCELLED!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!**

**.......Unfortunately, not. _ APRIL FOOLS!!!! ^_^;;;;;**


	11. Let it Burn

**End of A Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**WARNING: **Lots and LOTS of gore in this chapter. Lots of action, too. And angst. And death. And Shin-Ra kicks some BOOTAY! Wooooo! ^_^ However, if you don't enjoy violence, gore, convoluted plotlines, and extreme doses of melodrama.... Please, PLEASE don't read the rest of this.

However, if our scheme worked and you have been indefinitely drawn in..... Then go ahead!!! REEEEED!!! XD

*~*~*__

_Log: S. Demoni. Day 243. Time: 11:30 AM._

_  
The end result of this experiment looks bleaker every day. The subject is having great difficulty in transforming: my only conclusion is that someone must have anticipated that I would go soft and help the subject and its mother, but the reality is that Subject 001 **resists** the change. I forsee even more problems with the change in brain signals, since its original nature is already so violent. Its mother is no better, very bad-tempered and unruly. She resists this new process as well as her child: even with a triple dosage of the chemicals, she isn't looking any more human, even if she was a homo sapien at birth. All because of only one mismatched Adenine... it paired with Cytosine, and made the cellular mutation stronger in the offspring, who needs double the amount of chemicals to even show the slightest hint of progress. But the biggest inhumanity---the most profound irony--is that for every progression towards our race, the subjects undergo a normally unbearable amount of pain. It's as if they---they **want** to stay the way they are, for the sake of unchanging ignorance, perhaps...._

_I considered it, but aside from feeling a chemical imbalance in my brain-----it must be the medecine--strong stuff, that is, I have a duty towards these subjects to give them a chance at the top of nature's hiearchy. No... more than that. I'm on a mercy mission... to save what Edward would term..... labrats. If they remain as they are, these months of pain that I must inflict on them to make them human would never compare to the lifetime of suffering that awaits them..... The suffering that I **began**....... And morover.... my son.... I'm avenging my son.... in a way.... I wasn't able to save him from myself... But these two... Specimens--no--people.... I might be able to.... to.... **God....** What have I.... have I..... done....?_

_I need my medicine.... That's enough for tonight. Computer, end log._

~Report found in file labelled "Confidential". Archived by the Pallet Town Police Department. 

*~*~*

**Chapter 11:** Let it Burn

*~*~*

".....Okay, now he's OFFICIALLY nuts." Meowth blinked, holding onto the injured Persian. It had been wounded gravely both physically and emotionally.

Brock stared in shock as Ivy fell from the horn in Giovanni's mad dash, and then at the silhouette of the crazed creature as it fled through the underbrush.... but...... Brock frowned. Was it TRULY fleeing----or was it only attempting to escape an inevitable fate? But.... if he had REALLY been driven insane by the beastly way in which he had mauled Ivy, in the reflexes, the instincts of his mind and body..... why hadn't Brock succumbed to insanity?

The young "man" frowned, bringing a single, clawed finger to his left temple. Really..... it had been horrible at first.... but now.... only a few hours later.... was he.... actually...... FALLING into this new form?

Brock snarled at himself,whipping the hand back down. Of course not. He was only..... USED to this, skilled with this new body..... because of Valencia Island. Because of Ivy. Of course. He nodded to himself, raising his inhuman eyes once more towards the trail of broken branches and churned up earth that Giovanni had left in his wake.

_I wonder what's going through his head...... _Brock frowned once more, narrowing the eyes in thought. Now that Ivy was dead, he had completely regained his reason.... or so it seemed. _Now.... most-----Pokémon-----most WILD Pokémon, anyway.... if they're attacked by humans, or if they've been abused somwhow, taken advantage of..... They'll usually attack the nearest human settlement......_ Brock blinked, and then shuddered, remembering the time that the huge-sized Tentacruel had attacked the city that Misty had somehow managed to save from total annihilation. _I wonder....... we're at the northern side of Viridian Forest, so that would mean----_

He froze. He choked. He shuddered, he shivered, he gagged. An icy wind blew onto the back of his neck, through his deformed spine, and flowing through the black blood into every functional capillary in his hideous body.

_PEWTER...................................._

He was off like a.... well, a rocket. One moment he was there, and the next, he had disappeared, racing down the path that Giovanni had taken, bowling through the decaying trunks and freshly broken branches that covered the trail. He was silent inside, and he heard his own, growling, breath, heaving, heaving.... All Brock could focus on was the "road" in front of him, zooming past obstacles, barrelling through blockades.... and then.......... a flash of peach and red. With a strangled yell, he tried to swerve, tried to dive, but his momentum was so great that he couldn't help it when he slammed head-on into Misty. 

The girl was knocked down with the shocking weight that came so rapidly, pulling her towards the ground, dazing her for a moment. Ash, who was behind her, still wincing from his limp, couldn't help but give a shout of surprise, and regarded the creature with an expression as if this was the first time he had laid eyes on him. But no, it couldn't have been. Slowly, it registered in the boy's brain that this was Brock, the hideous creature that had been trying to talk to him, the... THING that he had wanted to capture.

"Brock, that's you?"

Misty shot him a brick glare of frustration, her blue eyes permeating into his amber ones, warning Ash to stop the useless questions:it was neither the time nor place for them. She stood up, slightly dazed by the rattling impact, but she shrugged it off, preoccupied by other trains of thought, which Ash's chatter constantly derailed.

"Brock?" she asked in a startled manner. It didn't take long for her relieved cerulean eyes to contort into a different shape: one of hurt and one of rejection, and finally, hatred. "You've got a lot of nerve, Brock! Why'd you leave me back there?! Were you running away?!" Recovered from the initial shock, she grasped firmly onto the Pokémon's scaled arms: they were coarse and cold to the touch, every unearthly quality of a being that simply did not belong. 

_Pewter----I HAVE to get to Pewter!!!!! _Brock snarled, jerking the arm away from Misty as he bared his teeth. Although he was as sane as ever, he was inadvertently alienating his friends: his only friends--even more. He tried to use his vocal cords once more, but all that came out was a long, low, growl, that forced Misty to loosen her grip on his arm. Then, Brock paused a moment, gave out another snarl, and brought his claws to his bestial vocal cords, pressing down so hard on his throat that he could barely breathe, but controlling it---somewhat.

"Puuggghh.....tuh."

The sound was the same; a feral cry that couldn't even communicate itself as the grunting of a neanderthal. 

Misty could hardly believe her eyes: she and an injured Ash had hiked all the way out there...... for what? Just to get shoved aside again, as if the other didn't care about anything anymore. Care. A human emotion. Would the absence of human emotion equal a non-human, an animal, a creature? Misty was beginning to ponder that as she heard the growl, that soaked into her brain with bitterness. Her blue eyes narrowed and she reached out to halt the mutant again.

"Hey! Just where do you think you're going?! You're not even 'gonna say sorry?! What's WRONG with you, Brock?! Aren't you still Brock? Aren't you still........ a person!!?"

She felt her feet sliding beneath her: the other was trying like hell to escape from her grasp, to give his hometown at _least_ a fighting chance against impassable odds. But NO... Misty was restraining him, trying to keep him from doing what he needed to do. 

The struggle could only last for so long. Brock seemed to be winning when Misty stabbed with a knife of words.

"If you are, show me!!!" 

The fuse was lit.

_SHOW YOU?!?!?! _He suddenly gave out a roar, and whirled upon her, monstrous rage reddening his eyes even further. As he thought the words, he attempted to speak, the claws pressing against his throat so hard that he was intermittently gagging between "words", and making black blood spill from his neck to his chest.__

_SHOW you?!?! What is there to SHOW?!??! It's me-----can't you even TELL!??! Don't you even CARE about ME??!?! Can't you even SEE how hard I'm working-----what those bastards made me DO?!??!! A person..... of COURSE I'm still a person.... What else would I BE, Misty, except for ME, huh?! WHAT ELSE?!?!?_

However, he found he could only choke out THIS to Ash and Misty's human ears:

"Grroouggh.... youghh??!?! KRAAAK!!! Wassgeerghh.... tagh.... GROUGH?!? Krisgh... MEGH........ goyrghss..... MEEEGH......"

He grit his teeth, further margling the last word as he shakily pointed a claw and brought it to his scaled chest.

"MEEEEEERGH!!!!! Ba---baarrourghhk!!!!" 

Misty was not softened by the feral growls, and it produced the reverse effect. She backed away, her eyes reflecting heightened caution. Ash backed away along with her, holding his fists up in pathetic defense, and struggling to maintain footing on his sore muscles. Without his Pokémon he was nothing but bold words and no strength to back them up.

"Don'tcha get closer, Brock!!"

They backed away further, the tenor of the indiscernible words escalating in their hostility, but the desperation of the inhuman sounds not registering in either of their minds, absorbing like a dry sponge. "Keep away... you.... Pokémon!!"

Afraid that the demon would attack, Ash dove to the ground, banging his leg on a stray pebble, and found a stick. He raised it to Brock's face, his visage of ferocity.....as if trying to distract him, like he did with the Krabby.....with his POKÉMON. 

THAT struck deep, hurting a part of Brock's soul that had been sheltered, ironically, by Ash and Misty for years. Now..... he felt alone again..... betrayed.... like when Flint left..... and with a huge burden on his shoulders... which he would have to carry alone....

But the instincts... they turned the shock and betrayal into a bit of madness, and Brock, screaming inwardly and roaring outwardly, grabbed the large stick and CRUSHED it in his free hand, making a step towards Ash and Misty in anger. Pewter, for the moment, had no rescuer, as the fury had taken over Brock's mind.... and had caused him to forget about his hometown's peril completely.

The claws were now mercilessly digging into his flesh as he pressed down, desperate----DESPERATE for language, communication, LANGUAGE------his body shook in anger and pain, as his tail lashed wildly behind him.

"MEEEERRGHH!!!! ...Itghs..... MEGH!!!!!! BROUGHK!!!!! Caarghn't....... yogh........ SEERRGH?!?!?" 

But......they, who had been the mutant's companion for so long, had been his support, his friend, those that always had been there........were now completely blind. Their eyes had been snatched away by the fear of the unknown..the dark, the concealed, the hidden, the masked. All was unknown, and all was fear. And if one feared a thing that they could not understand, they did not understand the creature: they were deaf to his cries, dumb to offer consoling, and blind to his agony... because of fear. 

And he saw the fear, saw the rejection..... And yet, he was even more frightened of their alienation than they were. He was.... TRYING to communicate, TRYING to ACT like himself..... TRYING to apologize for acting so brashly earlier... and now..... they thought he was....

"Agh..... Pourgh....kagh...mon....." He breathed out slowly, bringing the claws down from his throat. He looked down towards the ground. His eyesight was blurring with tears for what seemed like the hundreth time that day, on a timeline that would stretch out for an infinity. The black blood dripped down from the wounds that he had inflicted upon his throat, as he breathed harshly, erratically, and stretched out a hand towards a tree, leaning against it as he began to shake, his knees weakening, his lungs hyperventilating.

"M--MEEEEEGHH!!!!!!!" He gave out a last cry of anguish, falling to his knees next to the tree and bringing his clawed hands on top of his head---and his---his-----HAIR-------as he screamed out roughly in turmoil.

"Broughk...."

Another gasp for air.

"BRRRROUGGHKK!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

And then, he quieted, the only sounds being quick sobs on tears, as he leaned his head against the tree, his eyes shut. 

There was no way that those tears could not melt a hardened heart. But in Ash's case, his dullness was pronounced once again as he pointed at Brock accusatorily:

"First he's roaring, now he's cryin'! C'mon! Make up your mind already!" He paused. "If ya still got one....."

Misty was silent. Maybe... Brock still was human...maybe........ as she saw him crying, weeping like the flowing leaves of the bending tree he was propped up against, her heart was moved.....but only slightly. That one rejection...was enough to leave her bitter.....and doubtful. Doubtful of so many things..... of Brock's humanity, and her initial affection for him... they all seemed to be on the verge of true falsehood. 

The....... monster............ looked towards Ash in a mix of disbelief and pain. He "said" in a hoarse whisper, as if asking for some kind of mercy:

"Agsh....?"

He looked towards the other, and the growl was barely a croak as he remembered..... how....... HOW she had broken the trance.... that Ivy had put upon him.

"M-m-meghstiee...?"

The red-orange haired girl raised her head, perking up at the sound of her badly-pronounced name. It was more of a rough growl than anything, but yet, it was a word. A discernible word, though just barely, it was a word. It was human. Misty's blue eyes lit up like a lantern set aflame. Perhaps there was some of the old human that was left in Brock. There was still..... much, so much heavy doubt that persisted in her mind, and yet, the growl of her name somehow reassured her, even if it was only a tiny hint.

Ash, by now had given up trying to understand the monster. He was looking beyond the horizon......where the smoke of a fiery demise saturated the air above, conveying its bleak message of a condemned city, that, at the moment, would simply be doomed until further notice, as its only hope for salvation laid within the one that its citizens had jeered at so cruelly.... and who was now fearing rejection from some of the only people who... "cared".

At the optimistic look on Misty's face, Brock gave out a cry of desperation, and pointed at her. 

"Mmeghstie.....!!!!!" He took the same hand and brought it into a fist on his chest. "Ights...... MEGH!!!! Broughk!!!!"

He sniffed, and finally... outstretched a hand in desperation and lunged.

"MEGHSTIE!!!" He was looking for some kind of recognition, some kind of optimistic response, but since he was ten feet away, he only succeeded in falling face-flat in the ground, his bestial hand still raised towards her.

Misty stared at the monstrous hand, the claws, that were reaching out towards her: they were so threatening, so deadly, and on top of that were raised in her direction, but almost despairingly, as if the monster was wanting, yearning for a kind word. That's all he wanted. Not a pledge of undying devotion, an eternal promise of adoration, but... a kind word. This realization lifted the doubt from her mind, ground it into dust, and obliterated it from every corner of her mind, __

_Why was I so stupid? Stupid, stupid, stupid...._

She inched towards him, while Ash hung behind, his jaw hanging limply as he saw the girl walk to the... monster. _He just wants someone to understand him..._ She kneeled on the ground before him, and lifted the creature's chin, gazing into his hideous, demon-like face.__

_If I don't..... then who will?_

"Brock.....I'm sorry...." She took the monster's claws into her hands, and she beheld a slight smile... a slight, sad smile that didn't dare to part lips, lest the fangs frighten Misty even more. Around her hand he tightened the grasp of his scaled, clawed fingers, careful not to scratch her in the slightest.

".....Thaanghk..... Thaanghk youuuughrr..... Meghstie......"

_Thank you.... so much......_

His gratitude was immeasurable. If Misty had decided to ignore his pleads for mercy, refuse to accept his innocence, there was no one left in heaven or hell who could ever bring themselves to listen to his imploring, because she was the only one who would. If he didn't have Ash or Misty... or both.... his life would be meaningless... what would be the POINT to live through the pain he had been burdened with?

_Thank you, Misty...._. He didn't dare spoil the moment with his rough, uncharismatic voice. Because... suddenly..... in this moment of extreme desperation and loss.... she was suddenly looking much less... scrawny.

It almost seemed like.... a trance.... when he brought his face nearer and nearer to his face.... and then, almost on second thought as he took into account his current hideousness, moved his face away from her own and instead rested his head on her right shoulder.... in a way disturbingly familiar to that of Ivy's. Perhaps it was only the blind loyalty of a Pokémon to whoever wouldn't shun it.... but perhaps.... it was something more. And he was doing it because.....

_Because.... _He sniffed and nuzzled his nose into her collar bone_. I don't have anything else.... to live for......_

_Nothing else to live for._

_Nothing at all._

Except for..... 

Ash's disconnected thoughts were far away from the mutant and the girl. He was staring with his wide amber eyes at the hellish blaze that further illumined the bright horizon. The irony was morose as it was hilarious: the balmy, gentle evening rays that shone through the curtain of approaching night smiling down upon a....city.....burning.....scorching in the unavoidable belly of Hell....

"Hey, thing-that-looks-kinda-like-Brock-but-not-really!!"

Silence, and a stinging glare from Misty, burning as strongly as the distant flames.

"Pewter City's on fire!" 

"WAAAGHT?!?!?" Brock instantly tore away from Misty, and looked up towards the evening sky that was slowly turning into night, watching as the flames licked up and towered into the skies like pillars carved with omens of the doomed.

"Nooorghh....." He groaned, holding his head in his hands. "Noooorrghh......."

His eyes.... they suddenly were engulfed in the nine hells as his head whipped up, his arms swung out, and his tail lashed behind him as he barrelled THROUGH_THE_TREES, through the bramble that layered the ground beneath him... he was gone from sight within a matter of seconds. 

"Huh...." Ash blinked and curled his lip contemptously as he stared towards the mess that the "monster" was making in its wake. "Yeah, and I'm SURE it CARED before....." He turned around towards Misty. "It's probably just making a SHOW of being Brock!!! It's trying to fool you, Misty!!!" He paused. "And you're fallin' for it!!!!!!" 

"Just.... shut UP, Ash!!!!" Misty spat vehemently at the narrow-minded boy. She shook her head in dismay at Ash's reactions to all of this: he was like all the rest of them, and like she was a while before: the blind eye turned towards the lowly face of the damned. As her cerulean irises clashed with his sable, she could vaguely discern someone she knew...not very well, but enough to churn hatred for him. And right now, she felt as if she was hating Ash, loathing him for all he was saying. Her command ended with a resounding slap of her palm against his face, and she darted off after the ebony demon, who was headed for the center of the massive pillars of flame.

"AAAGH!!!" Ash cried as pain shot up his cheek. He groaned a small "Owwwww...." and then winced as he began to rub it tenderly with a gloved hand. "That.... that really HURTS, ya know, Misty!!!!" He fumed, chasing after her. 

Red sneakers pounding the ground steadily being won over by shadows, Misty circumnavigated the forest that Brock had so forcefully traversed, and her breath was tight in her throat, as the dirt was upset beneath her as she charged towards the city, that was completely engulfed by seething red-hot flames that seemed to be raising their arms to the heavens, shaking a golden-cinnabar fist at the clouds to defy the hidden sunlight that could not exceed their unrelenting brutality. As she neared the city, she slowed down, afraid to plunge headlong into the flaming heart of the devestation. But Brock had gone into the midst of it, and she was apt to follow. Inhaling as if it would be the last breath she took, the red/orange-haired girl headed into the destruction, that was elevated with the dying bemoaning their dead like the ghostly choirs of those who were soon to enter the netherworld. 

*~*~*

Brock himself had a heart which was at the moment pounding like the beat of a drum, whose pace was quickening. Everywhere his eyes darted.... bodies....everywhere he dashed.... heat.... and flames. Too late, too late.... because he had gotten preoccupied with HIS problems, with HIS worries....

Brock stopped in the middle of the main street, staring at the destruction that.... Giovanni.... had caused. Giovanni himself: not his legion of gangsters subject to him, not his Pokémon, but the boss himself...

Houses had collapsed into themselves, people were fleeing from burning buildings for their lives, as they trampelled over bodies of strangers and loved ones alike.... They were all yelling, screaming, crying.....

_Too late, Brock-O. You're too late. _

Somewhere in the city where the fire hadn't ignited, rubber wheels rolled along the squares of concrete that led to the north end of town. A baby carriage bounced along the bumpy sidewalk, as the baby gurgled and drooled inside, dangling his legs playfully. The mother smiled down at her baby, and reached her arm into the carriage to pinch the infant's cheeks. So elated was she that she was oblivious to the heavy tread of an animal behind her, tireless and menacing, its looming shadow growing ever larger, two malicious hellfires glowing behind them. And when she only felt air between her fingers, she knew something was wrong. Sickening dread cascaded over her, and she stretched her hand beyond the carriage. All fear vanished as she felt her baby's leg, the tender flesh so warm, so...sticky...with...scarlet..liquid...Her hand came away, covered in BLOOD... her CHILD'S BLOOD.....

"Gerald...h-honey?"

Her terrified gaze crawled up the baby's ankle, then his knee, then thigh, the soft peach flesh disappearing amidst a gleaming row of bestial fangs, soaked in ruby fluid that could only be blood. The mother was helpless. She could do nothing as the savage monster's jaws parted, revealing the face of the baby. So young, so pure, and now...so dead. A stifled scream, a sickening crunch of bones, and the mother joined her baby. The only thing left...was the now-overturned baby carriage, the wheels of which spun ominously in midair as the beast's breath ignited the pavement.

The second course fared no better. At the southern end of town, consumed by the active fire. Both victims' blood trickled out the sides of the repulsive jaws that were gnashing the bones and tendons into digestible juices, that had once been living, breathing beings, but no longer. In Zero-X's wake were left piles upon piles of bodies, no longer identifiable, mutilated beyond repair.....both humans and Pokémon alike. Most of the corpses had been gutted and devoid of any of their muscles or nerves: with some even the skeleton had gone into the putrid maw of the hideous creature. Others were devoured less messily, and their hearts were left to be weighed on the scale of Anubis.

He stalked off in search of other prey, his scarlet eyes burning with uncontrollable madness, and he trampled upon the oozing corpses in the process, mangling their frozen countenances even further, if their head was left intact. Each advance of his tremendous girth caused a slight tremor in the ground, shaking the wavering towers of flame as he walked further north. Something in his total absence of reason directed him to a certain house, that had been spared......until now. There were no lights in the house: the absence of light drew him nearer to it, attracted him to it, as flies are attracted to light, the ebony lizard was attracted to the hue of his flesh. His thick, curved claws scraped the ground below, gouging deep streaks into the barren soil.

There was a boy inside the house, that was playing with a ripped, stuffed Geodude. He was one of the younger children in the household, that got away with more leisure time. So engaged in his activity was he that he didn't notice a clawed hand shattering the glass, and gripping his small chest.....until it was too late. 

He couldn't give a cry as his head was bitten clean off, the rest of the body shuddering violently as the corpse of the boy was stuffed into the maw of death. 

The stuffed Geodude fell to the floor, where it was trampled by the clawed foot of the murderous beast.

There was a sudden pang in Brock's chest... as if someone had dug their claws into his chest and ripped out a piece of his heart. He gave a cry of pain as his head began to throb, and he staggered backwards, slamming himself inadvertently into the walls of one of the buildings that had been weakened. It was too late to move when bricks, wood, and other flaming rubble landed on top of him.

_No... no... the KIDS!!!!!!_

Yes.....the kids. The zenith of innocence......being eliminated by the conscienceless creature. Yet, one can't have a conscience without having a mind. At this point, Zero-X was mindless. He was definitely aware, he was conscious, but he was blinded by utter rage.....and his only recourse... was to kill. And to eat of the prey.

And kill and eat he did. After barging into the kitchen, the twins and their cold spaghetti were eaten, traces of the latter regurgitated on the floor in a disgusting acidic soup, that was dripping from Zero X's slime-coated tongue. It swung its tail, breaking the cupboard that concealed another one of the children, and he was flung to the floor, his nose breaking as he slammed into the cupboard, red blood flowing. 

"Helllpppppp!!! I'm scared!!"

The creature's acid-drenched tongue wrapped around the thin neck, squeezing the young life out of the boy while slowly digesting his throat walls, and when the boy was dead, he was drawn into the monster's mouth and swallowed whole, joining the rest of his kin. 

And where was the father? In his own room tucked at the back of the house, cowering, hiding away.....with Cindy. He couldn't be bothered with the other eight: his youngest daughter was his only concern: to hell with his other daughters and sons, borne from different mothers--perhaps even fathers: they were all trash..... ESPECIALLY... the eldest. The one who came... from HER........

He was deaf to his kids' screaming, their cries of terror, and the crunch of their breaking bones: he was calming down the frightened Cindy, who was holding a yellow lollipop. Flint held her dutifully in his hands, rocking her back and forth, forth and back, lulling her to sleep, trying to drown out the helpless wailing, the terrified screaming, and the bawling..... that was inevitably followed by a sickening crunch, barbaric slurping of blood.... He could only hope... that the monster wouldn't reach this room.... that the room would be spared. Let the world fall, but let _that_ room be saved....

No chance of that. The creature lunged, and the door collapsed, roasting in the flames. Flint went white with fear: the monster was a demon out of Hell itself: Lucifer's chosen soldier..heralding the imminent death. Its reverberating roar was the chord of so many of death's angels, and its eyes the diabolical manifestation of Hades' inner sanctum. Hell had truly arrived upon earth, bringing forth all of its death.....Cindy's eyes widened, as she clutched at Flint's shirt and bawled, crying, sobbing at the horrible sight. Her little heart was beating as quickly as that of a mouse. Like many small children, she thought that the safest place from anything was behind her parents... and so she scurried behind her father, every facet of her being shaking in absolute terror.

But most of all...

She wanted her brother. 

"Wha...whaddaya want with us??!?" Flint stammered, frozen in the face of death. "We're just a-----"

For the first time since the rage had overtaken it, Zero-X placed its claws on the doomed man's head, the pitiful excuse for a parent that gave a damn for nearly no one.... though Giovanni did not know how to communicate with the dominant specie, Zero-X did, and its voice echoed in Flint's head, in his brain that was trying its hardest to figure out some way to avoid this, that he didn't notice that Cindy had sought refuge behind him. But, death was inevitable. When it came in such a destructive form, it was inevitable. And it was a horrid death, marked by the scorn and mockery of mental condemnation.

_.....You're just a town of hypocrites._

Flint widened his eyes in terror.

_But aren't we all? You are, I am......but what separates you from me..._

The claws struck at Flint's face, drawing the crimson blood from his face, ripping the visage in two, the two halves of the skull separating, revealing the grey matter of the slashed brains and he slumped over sideways, landing at his daughter's feet. 

._.....I am ALIVE......_

It shoved the human into his bloodstained mouth, Cindy wailing loudly as her father was devoured, piece by piece......and then he turned to her. Licking his revolting chops, he stood over the terrified girl, his eyes radiating uncontrolled evil, and opened his jaws............. Cindy cried and wailed as the huge claws dragged her inwards, and she tried to run away, but the claws only slipped tighter, TIGHTER around her body, tearing through her small arms, suffocating her... She tried to breathe and began to choke, began to gasp for air. Her eyes slowly clouded and her life dimmed into the mist of the river Styx.....

When the demon from heaven arrived.

"RRRRROOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The roar shook the foundations of what was left of the house, and sent the roof crashing down upon the monster and its prey.

Two points of blazing light pierced into those of the monster, as the dust slowly settled and visibility became clearer. There was another drawn out growl of pure madness from the newcomer, and then a roar of fury as it slammed itself into the creature that had MURDERED HIS ENTIRE FAMILY. He dug his claws into the BONE as he slashed through the creature's face, dark energy seemed to wrap itself AROUND the monster, squeezing it..... strangling it.........

_YOU KILLED THEM._

_YOU KILLED THEM._

_I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

"BAAAAGHHSTARGH!!!!!" 

"GROARGH?!!!" _GEMINI?!?_

"RRRRRRRROOOOAAARRRGHHH!!!!!!" _THE__NAME__IS___**BROCK!!!!!!!!!!**

The hideous creature roared, sending an undulating wave of pain through his face, that was being torn through righteously by the incensed monster, that had EVERY RIGHT to tear him limb from limb......

Or did he? A bitter conflict between one power and the other struggled within Zero-X's mind and soul. It was not until now that this conflict surfaced, two distinct voices battling for control within.

_Yes.....I killed every last one of them...and I do not regret-----I regret it all! Why did I... do this? Why did I kill and enjoy it so-----because it is in your veins to kill. To kill everyone and everything, that is what you. and I were created for---no...this MASSACRE was your doing!! No, it was OURS......the voices---so many voices-----they won't STOP!!!_

The beast grabbed his bloodied head in pain, hissing in utter torment..

"SHUUUGHHH UPPGRRR!!!!" The attacker continued in its merciless fury, yelling out in its margled, sobbing growls. "SHUGH UPGR, SHUGH UPGR, SHUGH----"

"B-bwock.....?"

Brock ceased his attacking for a split second, and stared down at the small body that had been dropped from the monster's hands. It was shivering and shaking, covered with wounds, and gasping for air.

"SHCIGHNDY!" The tormented soul cried, leaping down from the monster's back and carefully reaching out towards her. He got a grip on her arms and tried to pull her out.... her legs.... from underneath a slab of stone that had fallen.... but every jerk me made, every pull he executed.... she cried, and cried, and cried......

Finally, Brock realized.... his strength had increased, so..... He took a step forward and put his claws underneath the slab. Then he heaved, and grunted, and pulled and pushed, trying with all of his inhuman might to bring up the stone and save..... his sister.... who now..... recognized him.

"Schighndy.... Is'sgh Gughna... beegh okagh........ AAAARRGHH!!!!"

With a final push, the rock rolled over, and Brock rushed to his sister, looking at the damage. Both of her legs.... were crushed beyond repair, both spilling blood and flesh and tendons ripped to shreds. Brock could only gasp in horror, as Suzie lifted her small head.

"Bwock....?" She stared up into the visage of darkness, and then sobbed once more, not waiting for an answer. "Bwock... It HURTS!!!!!!! IT HURTS!!!!!!" She cried out in pain, tears rolling down her tanned, dirtied face.

Brock was in shock for a moment, and then began to cry himself as he gathered Cindy, crushed legs and all, into his scaled arms. He closed his eyes and laid a hand on her head, stroking her hair soothingly.

_Shhh..... you'll be okay.... we'll get you to a doctor..... and-----and in the morning.... you'll feel all better, okay? _

Giovanni knew that he had done this. Whether willingly or not, he had destroyed the city, murdered its inhabitants in the most gruesome way possible, and ATE the kin of the already-tormented monster... Yes, he had done all of this. And what could he say? What could he do? It was too late for either. And as if he hadn't caused ENOUGH destruction, the murderous reptile was struck again by that opposite force, that rapidly overtook him......

He dragged his bloody mass away from the center of the death that he had caused, headed for another city directly south of Pewter: Viridian, leaving the mournful Pokémon to grieve for his family's lost lives. 

However, Brock wasn't aware that the fate of the citizens in the neighboring city might be at risk as well, as he closed his eyes and put his loathesome arms around the girl, rocking her back and forth. 

_Everything.... will be okay, you'll see.... _

The lollipop between her bleeding fingers, so small and frail, fell onto the floor, the yellow candy snapping in two. A faint smile formed on her bloody lips, and she nodded with difficulty, knowing that Brock, however hideous he was, would take care of her, would make the pain all better.....all better........she felt warm though the arms were so cold, so scaly, and she felt as if she were on a cloud...sailing....on a direct path to Heaven.......... Amidst the burning flames...of Hell, of death, there was a holy light entering her vision...it was so close...it was almost upon her, slowly leading her away from the fire, from life, from her caring sibling...she wanted to stay with him, but........ 

......She gave into the enveloping light, the beckoning of the seraphs in eternal happiness, away from the earthly pain of the world......... 

Her head fell back upon Brock's chest, and she breathed her last in her brother's arms. __

_It's going to be okay..... Cindy, you'll be all fine in the morning...._

Brock hugged her to him, and nuzzled his nose into her hair.

She didn't move.

Brock froze, his eyes snapping open as he stared down into her strands of brown.__

_C-Cindy.....? _

Silence. Her brown hair ruffled with the blowing of a southeast wind, but that was all. Absolute silence resounded throughout the inferno, amongst the scream of damned souls. Brock's eyes slowly closed..... and he held her limp form even tighter to his chest.

_I'm sorry........._

He kissed her forehead and pulled her away, using his claws to lightly close her eyes. Then, he laid her down upon the ground, softly.

_I'm sorry._

The sound of crackling flames and the soft whistle of the wind was soon joined by the quiet padding of footsteps.

*~*~*

Viridian City: the city of eternal........

Death. Blood. Destruction. Disaster. Chaos. Police sirens blared with intense blasting as the hideous monstrosity tore through the streets, overturning pavement, painting the sidewalks with blood as he devoured pedestrians, while the rest of the populace evacuated in virtual tidal waves, stampeding out of the city as fast as possible, the only thing on their minds being self-preservation. 

The Officer Jenny from Viridian stood at the forefront, directing the earth-shaking evacuation as orderly as humanly possible, meanwhile yelling out commands to her men, a bullhorn in one hand, a cell in the other, frantically giving the situation to her superior, while the terrifying beast laid waste to the city. 

"OFFICER JENNY!!!!" A shrill voice suddenly called. Soon enough, a very muddy and terrified Nurse Joy was there, a Chansey heaving in large breaths at her heels. "Officer Jenny------the Pokémon Center is overloaded with victims, Pokémon and human alike!!!!! We're running out of space for injured people to go, and the------" She gulped. "---the morgue is chock full!!!!"

"Dammit....." The blue-green-haired policewoman cursed under her breath, and pointed her arm towards the giant construction site at the far edge of town. "Move the dead to the Viridian Gym, and get the living out of here!! This place isn't safe anymore for anyone!"

She was about to say more when the reptillian thing barelled through the west side of town, a tiny, purple Rattata scampering away, trying to escape inevitable doom. Jenny and Joy could only watch in horror as the Rattata was sucked into the creature's jaws like a horrid vacuum cleaner, the tiny thing screaming in terror as it was consumed by the beast. 

In all her years of witnessing the harsh brutalities of life, she had NEVER seen ANYTHING as so utterly cruel and unusual.....exchanging a shocked glance with Joy, she waived all caution aside and mounted her trusty motorcycle, and rode towards the beast, tearing up the already-torn pavement, her gun emptying out as she rode. 

"Don't---move-----whatever-you-are!! Stop in the---name of the---law!!!"

The creature's eyes were engulfed with the hue of blood: his own and his prey, dripping down his face, unmoving as the armed woman came heading straight for him at ninety miles an hour. The monstrosity barely flinched as the motorcycle rammed into his thigh, ejecting Jenny from the seat and sending her onto the sidewalk. She shakily raised her face up from the solid concrete, that was discolored with some of her blood from a gaping gash. With a weak hand she grabbed her police radio, holding it to her quavering lips.

"...Need..... reinforcements....."

*~*~*

Rufus was drinking again. Not much; only enough that his body could stand each hour without becoming tipsy--only slightly relaxed. However, the amount was steadily increasing as his body built up an immunity, and he soon found himself downing two glasses--and then three.

WHY was another question completely. He had been feeling stressed lately.... slightly unlike himself. He was usually calm. Cold. Controlled. He never liked to feel as if he relied on anyone or anyTHING----which was slightly hypocritical since his entire LIFE revolved around the company known to the world as the infamous Shin-Ra, Inc.

This... feeling of insecurity had never existed before the explosion. Before Diamond Weapon. It had come to him... little by little, ever since he had woken up from a nightmare of Satan and Hell, finding himself in a private clinic, half-covered with bandages and surrounded by doctors----who worked for Hojo.

An unsettling feeling of dread nauseated his stomach. He winced, shutting an eye and leaning back in his chair slightly. He took a sip of wine, but no liquid touched his lips, and he pulled back the glass, a look of annoyance on his face. There was nothing left. He grumbled something, leaned forward, and reached for the bottle on the front of his desk. He tried to pour some.

None was left.

Something.... came over Rufus. He gave out a yell of anger, and blizzards iced his eyes as he slammed his right fist down on the table and used his left to grab the bottle and throw it forward with stunning force. It crashed against the door opposite the office desk, and Rufus could only stare in sudden shock as the fragments landed on the carpet below.

He.... he had never lost his temper like that before..... especially not at a bottle of _wine...._ He was cold, cruel in his assessments and anger.... he was always irritated at something or other, but he hardly EVER went overboard.

With a groan of dismay, he leaned his head forward, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. He had the most horrendous headache......

Nothing could be done to ease the ailment, but instead, only worsen it. A sudden "bang" was heard as the doors opened, a giant human marching in, standing at attention. He was in rather casual attire for a soldier: a sleeveless military jacket and loose-fitting cargo pants, and the standard boots completed his outfit. He stood at attention before the Shin-Ra President, and reported the situation as urgently as a man like him could convey it. Viridian's bein' attacked by somethin'. I'm gonna need some of yah troops,.... er...... uh... Mister.... yeah." 

Rufus slowly raised his eyes, stringing a hand distractedly through his hair. After hearing the man's less-than-eloquent diction, he vaguely wondered WHO hired the new SOLDIERs nowadays. He shook his head to himself, shutting his eyes. They were good at what they did, he supposed. That was all that mattered in the end, wasn't it?

"Troops? How many, mister........?"

The lieutenant didn't need to get past his freshman year, (which he didn't, anyway), to convey THIS to the young president: "The name's Surge, lieutenant, tho' most call me L.T., and expert with heavy arms during the last few wars, 'fore ya guys recruited me, sir! I know somethin' 'bout combat, so 'gimme 's many as yah got. This baby that we're dealin' with took down Pewter, and the civvies ain't handlin' it too good neither. I'm gonna need 'bout a hundred... an' some extra ammo... yeah, that'll bring th' baby down no problem!!" 

"A HUNDRED....?" Rufus glared upwards incredulously. "Surely, damage sustained by ONE creature cannot be THAT critical....."

With a scowl and a grab for a button upon the top of his desk, a flat video-screen slowly lowered itself from the middle of ceiling, just in front of his desk.

"Computer.... find any local news broadcasts covering the attack on Viridian City."

The black-and-white static on the screen soon gave way to the image of a reporter sitting ill at ease on his chair. 

"We're reporting live from Lavender Town, bringing you today's special report: Viridian City was attacked early this afternoon by a rare Pokémon leaving a third of the population dead, and two thirds severely injured. Attempts to stop the attack have failed, and the surviving people look to Shin-Ra Inc. for help." There was a pause of half-disbelief, although it was certain that the reporter had repeated the information countless times that day. "Earlier today, Pewter City was destroyed. A search team was assembled, but so far, no survivors have been found."

The television alternated screens of overhead shots of both Viridian and Pewter, the latter scorched to the earth, and the other not far off from becoming so. The camera lens caught blurry glimpses of the one responsible for the bloody massacre, but it wasn't until the cameraman had gotten too close that the horrendous visage of the regretless killer was seen in the light that it dreaded, amd even then, there were only a few seconds that elapsed before the lens shattered, and the agonized cry from the doomed cameraman was abruptly halted as the screen showed only static once more.

Rufus only arched an eyebrow at the horrific visage. Ironically enough, his headache was lessening. It was as if death and destruction calmed him.... He frowned further, and continued to run his fingers through his hair, a bit more nervously than usual. No, NO, that wasn't right.... MONEY...... THAT is what calmed him. Yes, his coffers would soon be filled to the brim.....

He suddenly frowned. His coffers. Ivy. Gemini. Zero-X.....

"Computer."

"Yes, Mr. President?" A montonous, female voice replied. Rufus' frown darkened. It sounded disturbingly like that AVALANCHE member.... the one with the-------generous bosom.

"Computer," Rufus repeated, slowly, staring at the screen. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten about the large man in front of him. "Replay that clip, will you?"

"Orders.... received."

The video replayed itself, showing the destruction, the monster----

"STOP!!!!" Rufus leapt to his feet, his hands gripping the sides of his desk as he squinted forward at the staticy screen. "Ah-hah!!!" He brought one of the hands up and pointed a half-gloved finger. He murmured to himself: "That...... CREATURE...... Is one of the Pokémon that Ivy promised me...... but, then.... why is it......?"

Suddenly, it came to him. The scowl faded, and was replaced by a satisfied smile, like a lion with an antelope under its paw.

"Hah.... hah.... hah....."

He slowly eased back into his chair, relaxing his muscles and giving in to the comforting brown leather. Heh-heh...... Ivy was more of a devious little bitch than he had previously thought........

The Lieutenant cleared his bulging throat, trying to get the president's attention and snap him out of his focus on what seemed to be other matters, that in no way related to the grave situation at hand. But how was the giant human to know what Rufus was talking about? After all, he was only affiliated with Shin-Ra because the damned company had threatened his platoon, not to mention their Pokémon. There was no way he wanted to be here, inside this spacious office, standing in front of the president of a megaconglomerate monopolizing establishment. He would have much rather been in front of his older-than-Omanyte general, who would have chewed him out for the slightest thing. But even THEN, his general had mysteriously "disappeared" and replaced with some overweight colonel whose laugh was atrocious. Standing before Rufus wasn't nearly half as bad as having to put up with Heidegger's trademark guffaw, and he eased up slightly as he said,

"What're yah laughin' about?"

The Kanto Lieutenant couldn't see any humor in this. People were DYING, here. Falling on top of one another like dominos. And Rufus was LAUGHING about it? But the latter was laughing at something else...

However, Surge was mistaken. Rufus wasn't laughing DIRECTLY because of the destruction. He was actually laughing at Ivy's little scheme, which would benefit Shin-Ra most in the end...... and in the process, disregarding the loss of life that was taking place. What did a bunch of townfolk simpletons mean to him? He was Rufus, and he wanted MONEY. It was very simple, really; the monster would destroy two cities, not only causing the islands to go in a weak state of mourning, shattering the economy in the process. And who would stop the monster before the government even responded? SOLDIERs. Who would make sure that no foreign powers attacked during this time? Turks. And who would reside over it all, talking about the PEOPLE, and how they needed PROTECTION from such horrible catastrophes as this? Shin-Ra Executives.

Rufus smiled, closing his eyes thoughtfully.

And who would benefit?

Rufus Derrick Shin-Ra I, president and largest benefactor of Shin-Ra Electric Company.

Surge didn't have the slightest inkling of what Rufus was planning. If one could measure the distance of the lens of a telescope he was using, well over one half of the lens would be fogged up by ignorance. It was impossible for him to even envision that Rufus would let the city crumble, just to fulfill monetary ambition. He knew the turmoil of war, but was not familiar with the turmoil of corruption and greed.

And therefore he persisted in trying to get some men. "Mr., there ain't much time. Am I gonna get th' troops?"

"Of course," Rufus didn't open his eyes as he responded. He was still smiling, even as he waved his hand in dismissal. "Get all the troops you want----in fact, five-hundred would be fine. Yes. Make a big show of helping, would you?"

"10-4, Mr......." He stole an obvious glance at the door, on which was carved the president's name. "...er, Prez Shine---Ray?" A sweatdrop hung off of his blonde, spiked hair, and he shaded red as an overripe tomato. "10-4, sir!" With that, Surge marched awkwardly out the door, bending his head to clear the doorframe.

Rufus smiled to himself once more. Perhaps his bad day was turning out to be a good one....

He suddenly frowned and rubbed his temple again. The headache had lessened, but it still hadn't disappeared completely...... It was becoming like an everyday throb. He sighed, and suddenly remembered that he needed some more wine.

"Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, sir?" The giant face appeared in the doorway, looking rather baffled.

"One more thing," Rufus opened his eyes, two points of blue which, amazingly enough, weren't Mako-infused.

"All ears, sir," Surge answered, the PokéBalls at his side vibrating without fail, and he placed his enormous palm on the orbs to get them to stop. It seemed as if Raichu and the others didn't like being here any more than he did, and were getting edgy. 

"......Tell my secretary as you go out to get me some wine," Rufus ordered calmly. He suddenly frowned. "No---wait----I've had enough of that for one day....."

He began to rub his right temple furiously with his right middle finger.

"Tell her to get me some---------"

He paused.

"Milk."

He almost reeled in disgust at himself, but instead continued.

"And.... tell her to let the cook know that trout is the request for tonight. I feel like some fish..." He found he had been looking down towards his desk and now glared up at the large man. "That will be all, Lieutenant."

Surge's eyes were widened: his first impression of the president was that he was like any other president of a company as extensive and powerful as this, but hearing what he wanted to eat: milk and fish? Though he wasn't the brightest of minds, the way Rufus dressed gave SOME indication of his culinary lifestyle. Shrugging his muscled shoulders to no one in particular, he left the room, heading for the secretary, and then the greater priority: gather SOLDIERs.

Rufus frowned. He had recognized that look..... but what could he do about it? This.... Lieutenant was a well known figure in Vermillion....

He leaned back in his chair, scratching his chin. _Now, to contact Ivy again, for--_

He opened his eyes and rubbed his hand around his chin, feeling a slight layer of stubble.

_Odd_. He blinked. _I shave every morning,_

*~*~*

The city of Viridian had long since been set ablaze. The wounded had to be moved out of the city. None of the structures were left standing. But Virdian would not be a complete repeat of Pewter, however: the shaken survivors of the attack gathered outside of the city, some shaking their heads in despair, others falling to the ground and beating it in anger at the frustration that they couldn't have done something about it sooner, and others unmoving, shocked at the swift blow that ended their relatively stable lives.

Nurse Joy ran up to one of the other Officer Jennys that had been called in. Her hair was in tangles, her pink uniform was splattered with the blood of her patients, and her usually-cheerful demeanor was now one of bleak hopelessness.

"O-officer!!!!" She cried. "The monster's heading towards the Viridian City Gym-------there are already trainers trapped inside from the gas line exploding----what do we DO?!?"

The Viridian Jenny clenched her teeth, at a loss at what to do. There were clearly two options: go in and save them, and risk dying, or do nothing. It soon became apparent that they had to do neither.

An enormous tank came rumbling across the earth, upsetting the fallen branches that littered the ground, crushing them beneath its heavy treads. A hopeful light emanated from the officer's eyes, and answered Joy,

"We go in and save them. Surge and his buddies can hold off the Pokémon!"

She mounted her motorcycle with some difficulty, because of her earlier fall, but started the engine and roared off, plunking Joy into the passenger seat, away from the rumbling of the approaching tank, and towards the flaming building, coughing up toxic fumes that permeated the air. 

Nurse Joy had to grip the sides of the motorcycle for dear life, as she and the officer skidded around overturned cars, swerved into alleys, and finally came to the street that bordered the spectacular Viridian City Gym---built anew after an accident just two years before.

However---they hadn't counted on the monster BEING there already.

He...it turned around, the bloodstained jaws clamped shut, hanging out from them a human LEG. The latter's Tauros was lying on the Gym floor, that had been cracked in two, its ribs exposed and its brains ripped apart. Jenny recoiled slightly in horror, but looked firmly at Joy, and they both rushed past the monster, into the Gym. The beast hardly noticed them, too engaged in chewing apart the foundation of the gym, spitting up large chunks of the concrete and stone, that blew through the wall, splitting the wall apart, loosing the cement and causing one half of the wall to collapse, burying the wounded victims beneath. Jenny and Joy had succeeded in forcing their way through the blocked door courtesy of Growlithe, and saw that..they were too late.

The hideous monstrosity scaled the balcony-type structure where the leader of the gym would often battle upon. It torched the curtain, the flaming fabric falling away, somehow unaffected by the blazing light of the destructive element. But this didn't make it any less deadlier. It drove its massive horn into the floor, splitting the structure apart completely, while its tail lashed violently, tearing the elaborate columns in two, that tumbled down in a mass of rubble. A work of man, toppled by another work of man.

The two women had no choice but to flee, as an explosion of hellfire swelled up and engulfed the ceiling, sending debris plummeting to the ground, in torrents of plaster, cement, and support beams that tumbled to the earth, crushing the wounded victims beneath their pressing weight, stamping out their last groans. The flames raged within the city as the rubble sealed them, as well as the monster which had caused this, underneath.

"Dammit.....NOTHING could live through that..."

"All those poor Pokémon.....and people...dead!"

"I had it under control.....damn the Shin-Ra!! Why didn't they come sooner?!" Jenny yelled in frustration as she approached the mountainous pile of rubble, small pebbles sifting out between the cracks of the remains of the formerly grand gym, a dust cloud billowing towards the heavens. "Almost an ENTIRE...CITY....."

"Officer Jenny, there's nothing more we can do," Joy affirmed, her eyes running up and down the silent mass of debris, underneath which the killer, and the killed, were lying under....

Just then, a rumble was heard as the lumbering tank halted in front of the former site of the Viridian City Gym. Like ants from their hill, third and second-class SOLDIERs poured out of the tank, the third-classes' firearms loaded to maximum capacity and at the ready, and the second-classes' swords drawn and ready to strike. 

Jenny and Joy stood glaring at the rows of blue and red, their bared weapons gleaming in the light. The culmination of this armed parade was when Lieutenant Surge climbed down from the tank, a confident air about him, fading as soon as he saw the Viridian Gym.

"Whoa....."

"The Pokémon's dead, Surge. But so's half the town."

The very abashed Lieutenant was about to say something when one of the SOLDIERs pointed his gun at the mass of debris. "It's moving!!"

Nurse Joy shook her head in disbelief. "It can't be. No one could've POSSIBLY lived through that...not even Ghost Pokémon..."

"Then why's it moving?"

"What are you talking about?!"

"GROARRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH....."

The debris toppled as a curved ebony back emerged from the mountain of destruction, followed by a scaled, spiked tail, and then a HEAD...covered in blood, that hadn't been caused by the collapsing of the building. Surge regarded the monstrosity with wide eyes; the televsion hardly did its fearsome visage justice. But now he was face-to-face with it.

"Yah'd better get 'outta here, babes. We're gonna handle this."

Jenny and Joy hesitated for a moment, their thoughts jarred by this crisis that happened so suddenly, that none of them were prepared for. They left, headed for where the few survivors were huddled. When the civilians had left, Surge nodded to the SOLDIERs.

"Fire at will!"

A thunderous din then ensued through the fire. Every third-class SOLDIER fired their weapons at once, in a single cracking shot that echoed throughout the destroyed city. In one crushing wave, the second-class SOLDIERs brought down their swords in a sweeping slash, plunging the swords into the monster's flesh. The remaining SOLDIERs emptied their cannons, fired their rockets, and flung their grenades, the tremendous cloud of smoke hiding the unmoving target as the projectiles burrowed into it. On and on this assault continued, an endless barrage of unrestrained offensive. And when the smoke cleared....the monster was still alive. Surge's jaw dropped in absolute disbelief, and raised a thick arm towards the SOLDIERs. "Fire again!"

Another slew of firing resounded, with the exact same result. The monster didn't seem to be fazed at all, and was bleeding because of other causes, which were unknown and which no one cared to know.

"Again!!"

Bang.

_"Again!!!"_

It was not until that they ran out of ammunition that Surge decided to utilize a different strategy. "Okay, if this ain't 'gonna work, I'm retirin'," Surge muttered through clenched teeth. He then turned his huge head to the SOLDIERs. "Engage harpoons!"

Several of them piled into the tank, and then piled out, each of them carrying the devices for ejecting the deadly metal hooks. They aimed in unison and shot the harpoons, thick ropes shooting foward and plunging the razor-sharp objects into the monster's flesh, that seemed inpenetrable before this attempt. It could only hiss and struggle uselessly as the ropes became taut, burying the hooks deeper into the creature's flesh, penetrating the muscle, and sending roars of pain from its throat, that was likewise being pierced by the three-pronged harpoons. "Lets bind it, ladies!"

Surge's mood improved as the SOLDIERs brought out heavy chains that they muzzled the monster with, eliminating the threat of being eaten, and they wrapped the bindings across the creature's chest, back, hind and forelegs, but dared not go near anywhere the tail, that had been lashing through this whole time, knocking away some of the SOLDIERs that dared to constrict this limb, sending them into the towering blaze. "That'll teach it tah mess with me!" Surge swelled with pride as he fumbled about in his pocket for a spare Ball. "Where's that damn-----here it is!"

His bright eyes locked with the monster's crimson ones, burning in rage and hatred at being chained like this....as a wild animal to be caught and tamed. It struggled furiously with the chains, but the harpoons only sunk in further, drawing up the ebony blood that flowed from the cracks in its..... his flesh. But, try as he might, he could not evade the impending imprisonment.

"Ultra Ball,_ GO!!!"_

The accursed device soared through the air, bouncing off the abomination's ebony flesh, it becoming one with the light and fading into the Ball, unwillingly, but too weakened to resist capture, that vibrated slowly on the ground before the red light turned white, and the Ball was still.

The SOLDIERs parted for the Lieutenant as he strode somewhat pompously to the Ball, and he picked it up, pocketing it. "Wait 'till the Colonel sees what I caught!"

He looked towards the stagnant remains of the Gym, and the entire city, the flames still mighty in their scorching heat, and no Water Pokémon to quell it. The destruction had taken its toll...and all because of one foe. 

Surge suddenly realized something. He sighed, groaned, put a hand to his forehead, and then muttered to himself. 

"Big G's 'gonna make _hell_ when he sees this....."

Funny thing.... he already had. 

*~*~*

**B9T: Stay tuned for chapter 12! It'll have Rufus, and...hopefully...heh-heh..Hojo! ^^**

**DMB: Whom I both happen to control..... :D MUAHAHAHAHA!**

**B9T: ^_- And you do that very well. As an aside, there's less gore next chapter. ^^;**

**DMB: And that's a GOOD thing? XD Just kidding. Anyway, review, and we'll smell ya later!!! XD;;;**

**TO BE CONTINUED...........  
  
**


	12. Innocence Abandoned

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

*~*~*

**DMB: **Ah, yes, I have finally discovered Adult Swim and the shows that are on it, as I proofread this while listening to a Tank mp3 over and over and over and over and over--

**B9T: ***cough*

**DMB: **Er, yes. ^^;;; Anyway, this is the longest chapter yet---a little less than forty pages to be exact, so grab some root beer, a pizza, and hopefully you won't take as much time reading it as it took to proofread and you'll enjoy it as much as we did while RPing it. ^_^ Now, I KNOW this whole fic is practically just a revamped version of the same old torture again and again and---Well, yeah. And I knooooow we use the words "pain" and "agony" and "torment" too much, but we're evil! So there! :P

**B9T: **^^;;; Enjoy.

*~*~*

**hu-man-i-ty **(hyôô man'e té) **_n._**, _pl_. **-ties 1 **the fact or quality of being human or humane **2** mankind; people

--Webster's English Dictionary

*~*~*

**Chapter 12: **Innocence Abandoned

*~*~*

Not only was Team Rocket HQ in shambles; so were the thieves who had dwelled there. Many of the TR members were sitting, stunned, on the outskirts of the destruction. Others were stumbling around in a daze. Some others were punching trees and kicking stones in their anger, and still others were crying in pain in makeshift tents, and a very small number were weeping.

Jessie was one of the latter.

"WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" She cried, pounding her fists on the ground as she kicked up with her feet. "I LOST OUR PAYCHECK IN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

James patted the distraught Rocket's shoulder and said in a comforting voice: "It's okay, Jess. You would've lost it anyway."

"I would've lost it ANYWAY?!" Jessie exploded, ready to hurl the might of her paper fan upon her blue-haired partner's head. "What kind of a consolation is that?!" After the minor explosion, she was flooded again.

"Well, it's only the truth," a disgruntled Cassidy scoffed, glaring at her rival. She was sitting on a stump nearby, eyes narrowed, arms folded, and legs crossed. "Nothing to cry about.... unless, of course, you're a WIMP......."

"I'm NOT a wimp!!" growled Jessie, jumping to her feet and shaking her gloved fist at her blonde rival. "Besides, what did YOU do? It's not like you tried to stop---"

She likewise had done nothing, but nevertheless, she said it with contempt. But who could do anything in a situation like that? It was every man for himself: it wasn't a question of fellowship or friendship or whatever it was called, but a question of survival, boiling down to the basic instincts. "---the boss!!!

"Well, DUH!!!" Cassidy snarled, clenching her hands. "DO YOU THINK THAT IT WOULD HAVE DONE ANY BETTER TO JUST _KILL_ HIM BECAUSE HE WAS--------"

"SHADDUP!!!!!" Meowth suddenly hissed, scratching both women across the faces. He heaved a breath and gestured towards the pitiful form of Persian. It had been unconscious since the attack on it, and the entire top of its head was bandaged, only its ears poking out.

"My pal here's tryin' to recover!!!! He don't know where he even IS, I'll bet!!!! You'll just make it worse with your roarin'!!!! 'Sides----" Meowth's voice dropped into a hushed whisper. "I don't t'ink da Boss would appreciate it if ya spreaded da word dat he's----well----da uncomfertable situation he's in!!!!"

Jessie arched a scarlet eyebrow, her gaze transfering from Meowth to Persian, and back again. What the smaller cat had said in normal volume alarmed her: he was actually DEFENDING that pampered feline that he had constantly envied and swore to take the place of. How things changed... and so quickly.

"Since when did you get so buddy-buddy with Persian?! And about the boss...he isn't here to hear me!" She crossed her arms stubbornly, hot-headed as she usually was.

Persian was laying on the ground, crumpled up in a pitiable physical and emotional state. The bandages on its head crossed its eye sockets, that were empty and yawning with the absence of eyeballs, and it lay unmoving, thrust deep into the realms of unconciousness.

Butch was not in the mood to fight, even with James. He was lying on the ground, watching the afternoon sun hide behind clouds and then unveil itself, the light shining on the ground. He had been strangely passive lately, and not because of what happened in the HQ. There was something else, something unknown, that was festering inside his mind, waiting to be let out. He didn't know what it was, the same as it didn't know who he was. 

"Well, I agree with Meowth!" James piped up, crossing his arms. "If he gets back to normal and finds out that we ruined his rep..... well..... he'll fire us!!!!!!"

Meowth glared. "Dat's NOT what I mean, Jimmy-----"

It was then that Ash stumbled out of the trees, covered in filth and mud. His head was missing his hat, his vest had long since been lost, and his black shirt's color was the only thing that hid the various stains that it had. His shoes were in tatters, his pants had been reduced to shreds, and he only had enough strength to take an awkward step, waver a moment, and then collapse to the ground.

The reaction to the sight of Pokémon trainer that time and again, thwarted either team's plans, and had disgraced every one of them along with his Pikachu, was pretty much unanimous: "THE TWERP!!"

"Team......... Rocket........." Ash groaned, rolling over onto his back with visible effort.

There was silence for a moment.

"Whadda YOU want?!??!" Meowth demanded, clenching his paws at the site of the overly-ambitious trainer.

"You've....... gotta...... help......."

"Help?! Help YOU?!" Jessie yelled in an outrage equal to the churning magma that bubbled to the surface when the sea floor spread apart. This was unthinkable. After all the years of humiliation, their balloon deflating, hundreds upon hundreds of shockings, gallons of water in their ears and knife-like leaves always ready to tear them apart, this little brat was asking them for HELP? 

"No offense, _brat_," Cassidy said acidly, "but why in HELL would we want to help YOU after you busted all our INGENIOUS schemes?!?!?"

The battered boy gazed into the rage-contorted faces of his enemies, gasping out his explanation of why he was there and why he was thrashed.

"Followed Misty... and..... Brock.... followed.... monster..... caught....."

"Kid," Butch croaked, "Say it out." 

"....went back.... Pewter... saw... Brock..... he... wasn't... happy...." Ash finished his scattered narrative with a weak groan, falling foward on his face.

Jessie blinked. "Which monster?"

James gaped. "What happened?"

Meowth cocked his head. "And where's ya cap?"

"Dun... know....." Ash moaned, making no effort to get up. "Monster...in..there..."  
He gestured with his scratched-up head towards the remains of the headquarters. "Lt..Surge...got...it...." he let his head drop down on the ground again, heavy with fatigue and weakness. Funny, he wasn't recovering very fast from it. Usually within a few seconds of getting hurt, he would be able to get up again. But Brock wasn't a light hitter, even more so now that he had been changed.

"GOT IT?!?!?!" Cassidy yelled, grabbing the boy by the collar and shaking him. "THAT SURGE GUY _CAUGHT_ THE _BOSS?!?!?"_

A moment too late, she realized her mistake.

"Uh----the MONSTER-----" her eyes darted around in a strange fit of paranoia. "I meant----Surge caught the MONSTER??!??! Eh-heh-heh...... heh......"

Butch ruined Cassidy's efforts on accident. "Yeah, the big gym leaduh caught ouh boss? Did I heah you right?"

Ash rolled over onto his bruised side, blinking his amber eyes blearily. "...Boss?... Monster?..." Slowly, he put two and two together. "Your... boss.... is... the... monster...?!" 

He couldn't be more befuddled than if someone walked up to him that very moment and said that Tracey had sprouted celestial wings and became an angel overnight. 

"......Yah," Meowth admitted, hanging his head. It suddenly snapped up, and he pointed towards Persian. "But he ain't in his right mind, so he can't be held responsable fer his actiens! Look what he did to his poor Persian! And he's had dat t'ing FOREVER!!! He didn't like it so much when he found me, but I sappose da novelty wore off-----he's had dat cat since before..... since before he was da BOSS!!!!"

Ash's mind suddenly became hazy, triggered by something Meowth said. It filled his mind with a puzzling memory: he was sitting on the steps of his house in Pallet, playing with a vanilla-colored Meowth. 

"Wook! It's gunna be a big and stwong Posian!"

Ash raised his black eyebrows as the memory faded. Another memory, relating to the one about vanilla. He stared over at the Persian, still laying motionless on the ground. So familiar...

Meowth blinked tiredly at Butch and Cassidy. "You guys are just making it woyse."

Meanwhile, James had been inspecting Ash with his eyes, and was astounded to see how much damage had been inflicted on the young trainer.

Butch stole a casual glance at the unevolved feline. Prior, his mind had been elsewhere.

"What?"

The biting ache in Ash's arm came back in full force when James so unassumingly brought it up. It crept over his arm like a dozen venemous Caterpie, and made him groan dully in answer: "Y-yeah.....he-----he did...He... just..... RAN at me... I called 'im.... then he started... scratchin' with his claws... Was it somethin' I said??"

"Your sob story doesn't move me in the least, brat!!" Jessie cut in with indignance lacing her voice. "Knowing you and your twerp friends, you brought it on yourself!!" 

"But... that's... not--it!" Ash protested faintly, the four gouge marks up his arm draining him. It was as if Brock was reminding him... but of what? Oh, yeah. How his verbal slip-ups fueled the mutant's self-hatred, intensifying the heat of its subconscious vengeance, but inwardly and outwardly, merely a fulfiling of the need to unleash certain instincts. Instincts, that he inadvertantly helped to infuse. He saw himself again, battling instead of RUNNING... if he had JUST TURNED AROUND AND RAN. The weight of the blame for what had happened was also upon his head. Not Misty's, definitely not the mutant that was Brock, but Ash. And now he was denying it. Denying that he had driven the nails into Brock's coffin of interminable torment with a careless pound of the mallet upon the nail head. Denying it all by lying. 

Lying.....who else lied? Team Rocket. Didn't they have a hand in this, too? That horrible transformation that caused worlds in the heart and mind to crumble and disintegrate? But he was responsible too. That made him.....no better than his enemies: no better than those he condemned for their amorality, the evil which he himself posessed. 

The boy raised his vexed gaze level with the Rockets. "I didn't-----MEAN to--make him feel bad..."

Cassidy's face seemed annoyed as she glared at Jessie, but the look cooled down a bit as she turned towards Butch. 

"Do? What's there TO do, Butch??!?!" She put her hands on her hips and scowled. "The boss has been captured by someone or other, TR is practically DONE for......." 

"But we'he just gonna sit around and watch while everything falls apaht? We 'gotta do SOMETHING, Cass.".

Butch got up and walked towards his partner, who seemed so resolute in just...giving up. It wasn't like her. Everything was falling apart at that very moment.

"Like WHAT?!!" the Rocket yelled at her partner. She sighed and leaned forward, holding her chin up with her hands. "It already happened, and the ONLY thing that'd get the Boss back to normal would be if we got an ANTIDOTE or somehing......" 

"An antidote........" Butch frowned and then looked up. "Lets go look foh one."

Jessie stopped belittling Ash at that moment, the latter falling again. Butch stepped on his bruised chest in the process of walking towards Cassidy.."What do you think, Cass?" 

"Yeah.... but....." Cassidy scowled once more, and stood to her feet. "Where the hell do we FIND one?!??!?!? It's not like we can just walk into a drug store and lift an antidote meant to turn humans-gone-psycho-reptile back to normal!!!!"

"Then we'he sunk," Butch moaned, letting his nerves go limp in a melancholy state. Jessie casted a disgruntled eye on both him and her rival, folding her arms in dsmay.   
"Haahahaa! You're members of Team Rocket?! The team doesn't keep quitters!" she taunted with that wry smile on her face. 

Cassidy's eyes narrowed. "It's not like YOU'RE volunteering or anything...." she growled out the side of her mouth. 

"We were------GOING to...RIGHT, James, Meowth?!" 

She drove her elbow into James' ribs, a bit harder than she meant. 

"Owwwwww!!!!!" James whined, and then scowled, glaring back towards Jessie. "What was THAT for?!?!? For not wanting to go after the Boss!!?!?!? YOU told me to keep my... 'sorry ass' safe!!!" Jessie grimaced and grabbed her partner by the arm and took him aside, out of earshot of Butch and Cassidy.

"Just say it!" Jessie hissed into James's bewildered face. "We don't want them to think we're scared!" She thought for a second and added, "No, it wasn't for that....." Her face flushed the color of her hair for a split-second, but it couldn't even be detected when she snapped,"It doesn't matter what it was for!!"

Cassidy finally grit her teeth and grabbed Butch by the arm. "C'mon..... we can't just sit here and watch those two bicker all DAY!!!!! 

Butch nodded willingly as he was grabbed, eager to be far away from their rivals. "Yeah, lets get out of heah..... didn't she have a lab in Valencia oh something?"

Cassidy grabbed Butch even harder, pulling him in the direction of Mondo. "Maybe HE can patch up one of the vehicles to use or something...."

When ten feet away, she called out: "YO!!!!!!! DITTO BOY!!!!!"

Jessie and James didn't even seem to notice.

Not a great distance away, Mondo poked his round face out from a nearby tree, and made a face of displeasure when he saw who was calling him.

"Ew.....it's Botch and the barbie doll!"

"Barbie doll?!?!?!" Cassidy stood, blinking in confusion, not sure if it ws a compliment or an insult. 

"The name's BUTCH!!" 

Their answer to Mondo's address was in unision, as it was habitual for the pair of Rockets. Mondo giggled to himself, having confounded one of them, and embarassed the other. After having his laugh, the white-uniformed Rocket came out from behind the tree, his Ditto squishing across the ground behind him. "What do YOU want?" 

"We.... er....... we need something..... to get to Valencia Island with!!!!!!!" Cassidy crossed her arms indignantly. It WAS Valencia Island.... right.....? She blinked a moment and then shook it off. "Anyway------seeing that the very being of Team Rocket is at stake, and we're of higher rank..... You need to help us get there!!!" 

Mondo was feisty, but was a very agreeable person. He was also very trusting, to the point of slight naiveté. Sitting down next to his Ditto, he put his chin between his thumb and palm in a contemplating state. Suddenly he jumped up, Ditto squeaking as it followed its trainer.

"Okay......I'll help! You can take......"

He dashed into the forest, and within minutes, he was back again, the Ditto suddenly having disappeared, and in its place an odd-looking Machop, that was hauling a.....red submarine. But, it wasn't, surprisingly, the Magikarp-shaped submersible vehicle that his idols had used to navigate the Orange Islands with, but it a larger sub, and it was clear that the Ditto was having trouble dragging it. Butch backed away as the nose of the crimson submarine was dragged in front of him and Cassidy, gawking at the sheer size of it. The submarine was actually being carried on wheels, and despite the reduced effort needed to push it, the Ditto was still having a hard time with it. At last Ditto let go of the submarine, and Mondo introduced it proudly, beaming at the machine, something never before seen on Kanto.

"Here it is! I jumped into the ocean and saw it wrecked! So I brought it up and fixed it! Isn't it a beauty?" 

He breathed in in a sort of satisfaction, and rubbed the red paint vigorosly. "Funny...the rocks down there are different from the ones in Kanto..and I jumped through this white spot to get to the water...wonder what it was?"

Butch arched an eyebrow as Mondo babbled. It was all unintelligible, anyway; the kid was talking at 123 kilometers per minute. 

"So... since we aren't anywhere NEAR the ocean, I suppose we need to GET it there, right?" Cassidy scowled in dismay. "What are you, retarded or something?!??!? SHEEZUS!!!!!!" She began stomping off towards the ocean, trudging in her unthankful exasperation. She paused, and suddenly whirled around.

"Well?!?!? What are you waiting for??!" She yelled. "START PUSHING THAT THING!!!!" 

"Heyyyyyy!!!!!" Mondo whined, bunching up his fists, a bit miffed. "I'm doing you guys a favor, you know! Be a little nicer to a poor kid!"

He signalled to Ditto and started pushing the sub, the wheels under it creaking as the patched up sub slowly, painfully began to roll. Butch sweatdropped as the submarine inched along, a quarter meter, a half meter, finally a full meter, bit by bit, covering as much ground as a Slowpoke would in fifteen minutes. 

"Ditto, lets go faster!"

"Maaaachop!"

Ditto nodded, beads of sweat clinging onto its head, as it started to jog, and then run, pouring all of its strength to move the sub. Butch finally had enough.

"Go, Primeape!"

The enlarged orb spun onto the ground, unleashing the hairy Pokémon, its eyes perpetually enfuriated, and it immediately rammed itself into the side of the sub, grabbing it with its fists and pulling it towards the direction the Rockets were gradually headed for. 

"Cassidy nodded in curt approval, and began to walk forward. "Now.... all we have to do is keep pushing that thing for a few hours....."

*~*~* 

Surge gazed upon Vermillion, his hometown turned into something more, through the glass window of the elevator that ascended to the upper levels. He held his key card for the 37th floor in one hand, and the Ultra Ball in the other. It was now safely double-locked and bolted with the deadly monster inside it and nowhere to flee. He patted his muscled chest in great satisfaction and pride, as well as relief. Though Viridian and Pewter were lost, there was no waythat any other city would fall. The threat had been eliminated, and after Surge reached the 67th floor, the slightest reason to worry would be as well. They were ALL in good hands with Shin-Ra Inc.

He stepped out of the elevator, his catch clutched in the middle of his large palm, and his heavy combat boots thudded across the polished floor, making his way to the most infamous place in Shin-Ra HQ: the labs. 

The labs.... ah yes, those horrible, evil dungeons of despair, from which specimens, subjects came in.... and many times, never came out--at least in a recognizable form. As Surge came to the door, he suddenly felt ill.... like Reno had, at hearing the tormented squeals of some creature or another, and a dark voice, sharp, but strangely quiet, as if it didn't need an aggressive tone to prove its superiority.

"So... that DOES hurt, I suppose? Hm.... effect of THAT chemical being..... "

Despite his military expertise, Surge got a queasy feeling in his stomach. There was something about that sinister voice that raked on his nerves. He took a step inside, nervously looking around, the shocking sights of caged specimens greeting his unintended gaze. They squirmed behind the steel partitions that kept them in their place, pleading for liberty that they would never have.

"Uh.....'s anyone here?"He knew the answer to that question as much as the next deaf person. But he wanted to hear an affirmation of that himself. 

"Another person knocking at my door...?" Hojo came, hunched over and a clipboard in his left hand as he adjusted his glasses and squinted upwards--FAR upwards--with his right. "And what might you be here for...? I'll let you know I am currently in the process of---" His eyes had been moving downwards, and they suddenly locked on the UltraBall, narrowing. "What is that?" 

"It's th' Pokémon attackin' Viridian an' Pewter! It got rough with us, but we put th' 'lil baby in 'is place!!"

He presented the ball to the short man, bending down in the process: he was at least 5 heads taller than him. "I lost th' thingy yah use tah get tah the 39th floor. Figured I take it tah yah." 

"The creature that-----Ahhhh......." Hojo immediately dropped the clipboard and snatched the UltraBall away untrustingly, as if the large man would keep it for himself instead of turning it over into.... proper... hands. "Yes.... certainly more heavy than most UltraBalls..... I wonder.... could Ivy have truly been telling...... could it be.....?"

He shook his head, and the awed look left as soon as he glared back up at the large man in front of him. "There is no more use for you here." 

Surge's ego fizzled out in that instant. Here was this little.....scrawny...four-eyed....CIVILIAN being condescinding towards him, a respectable lieutenant in the Kanto army. More than miffed, Surge grumbled as he stomped off, the sound of his boots through the corridors steadily abating until it disappeared entirely. 

As soon as Hojo was sure he heard the door slam, a smile upturned the corners of his lips. He looked down at the UltraBall once more, turning it around and fingering it in his pale, dexterous hands. "Ivy..... is perhaps more qualified as a scientist than I previously assumed...." 

The creature trapped inside the circular device was struggling with all of the might that it had left to escape the confinement. There was something wrong about the surroundings outside...he could tell it was being held, but by who? And what did he want with him? "How" still echoed in his mind, dully, but still pounding, the unsolvable puzzle of how. But with the decrease of justifying came the increase of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the unseen.....fear of what lay ahead in his clouded future. And the empty pores of his being were filled with guilt, flooded with remorse, of the destruction he had caused, the lives he had taken....so monstrously, with his own fangs. Guilt hurt the most. It was a leech, clinging onto the beast, sucking it dry of its blood, or in this case, his mind, leaving him nothing to do but writhe in agony....all inside that spherical prison.

Hojo was unaware of the creature's dread--its musing--as he slowly shuffled towards an object towards the right side of his lab. It was something out of a... well, a mad scientist's lab. It was a large, plexiglass tank, filled with some kind of bluish liquid and completely sealed. Inside dangled cords, IV tubes, and several wires with large.... hooks at the ends. Giovanni's fate seemed clear.

The trapped monster felt himself being moved, gradually, across a space. He could not tell if it was outdoors or indoors, nor did he care at the moment. No light penetrated inside the Ultra Ball. It could see nothing, nor feel nothing, save for the human blood dripping down his face, a glaring reminder of the deaths he had caused. Blood...Gemini had drawn some from him, but it wasn't nearly as painful as this red blood.....the NORMAL blood of NORMAL human beings that he had so ABNORMALLY spilt.

Hojo was chuckling to himself as he reached the instrument of science. He gazed at it a moment, distractedly punching in figures with the fingers of one hand into a keyboard attached to it. The rest of his body was still, save for his mouth; it upturned into a wicked smile. With a small nod to himself, he steadily took his right hand and minimized the UltraBall, placing it in a small niche at the center of the control panel that he was operating. With another click of the keys and the twitch of a lever, a plastic encasing shot up from the panel and protected the ball as a hole opened under it and it was hurled into the far reaches of the machine.

A white burst of blinding light exploded from the opening device, overtaken by the opposite hue of the spectrum as the lizard materialized, crushed against the limits of the cyllindrical tube. An inevitable roar gushed out from the reptillian vocal cords, overwhelming the finite space with a tormented rhasphody. His tremendous roars were released in unision with the clashing of his protruding horn against the glass, fighting against the undulating tide of the alien liquid, decreasing the weight of the deadly end on its target. His succession of assaults on the impassable barrier proved futile, only serving to heighten the despair of his roars. Fear put all guilt to rest. No matter what atrocities he had instigated previously, the leader of Team Rocket, even if he indeed was this totally inhuman monster deserving nothing but men's hateful scorn, he couldn't be penned up like this. Or could he? The crimson liquid rolling down the reptile's face served as a painful reminder. 

The glowing pits of scarlet wandered the strange surroundings. It was definitely a laboratory...its sheer size intimidated him, and he shrank away from the horrid sights of the unimaginable, only to focus his gaze on something else that struck more terror in him besides the dim light that shone beyond the glass: a man. A man in a labcoat. A man in a labcoat whose face was adorned with that smile.....that familiar sinister grin of ill intent..... 

"......Good evening."

Those were the first words. It was customary for Hojo to try to calm his subjects..... try to coo them with meaningless phrases and calming ideas.

"I trust... that you had a good trip?" 

_..Good..... trip....?! What do you---what are you---doing?!!_ It was clear that Giovanni had regained his ordinary frame of mind, but it was stifled in rising panic. 

"Now, now...." Hojo arched an eyebrow, taking a step back and running his eyes over the creature's form. It didn't seem as if he could hear its thoughts. "I don't believe that hurting yourself will solve anything..... In fact......." He punched down another button, and the wires and tubes instantly came to life, the hooks launching themselves at the  
defenseless..... creature. "It will only hurt more."

_Hurt.... more?! How is that possble?!_

A speedy answer came in the dreaded form of the swarming multitude of wires, at the termination of the flexible material projected curved hooks that penetrated the struggling Pokémon's flesh, sinking into the gaping wounds that Gemini inflicted, unknowingly reducing the work of the wires and hooks, their descent into the muscle unimpeded. The defenseless monstrosity roared in pain, struggling against the next onslaught of hooks that gradually pierced the scaled hide, burrowing into the flesh, drawing out the ebony blood from the writhing animal, painting the blue liquid that surrounded Giovanni, who was doing everything in his power to escape: biting the wires, slashing the hooks, smashing his giant tail against the glass, but the more he struggled,the more the tangled plethora of cords stretched and became taut, yanking the hooks up from the muscle but then burrowing deeper.

Suddenly, there was an onrush of chemicals, the hooks somehow releasing fluids into his black bloodstream, the pure pain escalating as the chemicals flowed into his brain, every drop of the liquid colliding into he cerebellum as a bullet train collides with a sealed tunnel, repeating over and over, one surge of unrelenting pain after another, interminable, infinite.

"Now............" Hojo answered a moment too late. He smiled, putting a hand to his chin as he pursed his lips. "Searching for brain patterns, intellect, memories..... composition of body....." With each word, he brought his head lower and lower, bending down over the screen atop the panel. "Hm......." His eyes widened just slightly as his face brightened, and his eyes narrowed in a mix of satisfaction and fulfilled anticipation. "I suppose Ivy DID do something right, after all..... Though I find it hard to believe that Professor Demoni's prized son was in such obvious light. It almost insults me that you were here all along, just as should have been expected......"

Such were the mutterings of Professor Hojo. The mutterings of which Giovanni was too agonized to bother to understand. They were just words, after all..... nothing truly important, just everday language.....

"ROARGHHHHHH....."

The sound of his own coarse growling jerked him aware. He knew how invaluable words were... why was he suddenly ignoring their meaning? The comprehension was still there, but the drive to understand them somehow... disappeared.

_These... chemicals... why are they dulling my thoughts?_

The pale glow of the screen emanated entire paragraphs that spanned the length of the screen. They were blurry and indiscernible, much the same as spoken words.... were... steadily... becoming...

"GROARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!"

From the tube and mess of wires shot an enfuriated cry as the monster gripped a bundle of wires and with every effort of his muscles and brain working in conjunction with each other, pulled the wires connected to his arms and chest up into his fanged jaws, where he chewed at them, the points of the teeth burying themselves into that loathed surface, hoping that his fangs and the acid within his mouth would somehow sever that messenger of those despicable chemicals, that would end the infinite flow, and end his acquired dullness with it. 

Hojo noticed the resistance, and frowned, looking to the tube and then down at the control panel. Back and forth.... back and forth..... as if putting two-and-two together. His eyes suddenly brightened in realization.

"Of course..... you're suffering from Cuerpaphobia," he smiled again. "With good reason, of course......" He looked down at the screen once more, using a finger to scroll up and down the box that contained information concerning his subject. "Ahhh... I see you are able to employ thought-speech as well."

The wires weren't breaking. They weren't even scratched. But Giovanni's despair escalated, and the nagging desire to not understand was growing. His teeth sunk farther and farther into the smooth surface of the wire, but never severed them, letting the chemicals continue to flow freely throughout his very being. He failed to see the futility of it all, though, and chewed for all it was worth, which was absolutely nothing.

Hojo noticed the actions and scowled. "You should know that we cannot allow that..... His hand slithered towards the upper right-hand corner of the panel, hovering over a small, red buttton labelled "Negative Impulse Generator".

"Now...." he smiled. "You don't want to make me press THIS, now, do you? Relive your worst nightmares....?" As he smiled, he used his other hand to take a small pair of headphones that was connected to the whole sadistic machine and held it to his left ear.

_Nightmares? _The monster gave a growl of confusion as he halted, the wires bunched up in his jaws, that slowly grew into bitter anger. _Nightmares.....?! This... here... now.. IS a nightmare already! It can't get any worse... _The eyes of the beast glowed a defiant crimson as he mashed his teeth into the wires again.

"Would you care to.... bet.....?" Hojo said carefully. It was surprising to Giovanni that he could hear the thought-speech through his headphones.... but... did that mean that....... those wires were directly in contact with his brain?! Perhaps so.... a few had attached themselves to the top of his reptilian skull, numbing the skin and bone as they burrowed down.... down.... down........... Tunneling into the every layer of his brain, like nightcrawlers through the earth. Alarm suddenly gripped him, because now, that man could hear his thoughts, his mental screams, he could now be inside his HEAD......

"......Interesting..... very interesting....." Hojo murmured, stopping his threats as Giovanni paused in shock. "Leader of Team Rocket.... showing DEFINITE predatory instincts.... this at least proves that Ivy's dubious credence was sincere in this operation.... Hm...... these.... subconscious thoughts.... fairly _swarming_.... Remarkable...!"

_AARRRRRRGHHH!!!!! Stop it!! Stop------looking into my head!! You....shouldn't be... INSIDE, there.....You shouldn't be hearing my BRAIN! _He snarled as he grew aggressive again, smashing his tail spikes against the glass, thrashing in every direciton, anyway and everyway to get out of this hell......to escape being heard, his mind being probed.... a mind at that moment that was growing less and less developed... degrading itself....

"Ah.... so I take it you are unaware of this... subconscious, then, hm?" Hojo rested his right forefinger on the red button, lightly enough so that it wasn't activated. "Would you like to see for yourself? It should subdue you, and you would not be ignorant. See? A benefit for both sides."

_No...... no..._It struggled all the more, banging its head against the cylinder, the wires tugging at every inch of his writhing form. _...I don't want to be aware...... let me out of here..... what purpose do I serve you? What purpose did I serve her? Why don't you both let me be!!?!_

Hojo paused for a moment, pensive. "Because.... because of science, fool. What else do you think would drive us so completely? He didn't wait for a response. "But... I suppose sense MUST be HAMMERED into some subjects..... Very well, then. Experience the event that made you this way.... forever...more..... Hahahaaa......."

He pressed down the button.

Incredible splitting pain seared straight through Giovanni's mind, engulfing it with a venemous sting that radiated outwards from the concentrated source. It was unlike anything he had endured before or since. It invaded every single lobe of his brain, the pain concentrating itself to there, but with its full force, sparing no ounce of devastation upon the monster's inhuman mind. It equalled a hacksaw being driven into his skull without restraint, so terrible was the pain that swelled until it could increase no more, until his mind was saturated with the immense agony.... and then, the void. Darkness and silence enveloped everything around him. There was nothing to hear, nothing to see in that infinite oblivion that was everywhere. For the longest stretch of time, there was only oblivion, and its vastness was beyond his comprehension. Its magnitude was comparable to space, but its finality... it had none. Until..... haltingly, the one solid blackness began to fade, greying, into a dark grey, that slowly lightened, and then a light grey, that finally became light, dim light, the kind that needed to be squinted at to see clearly, but still a speck of light. Then another, with the same sluggishness to spark as the first.

Silence was the next to go. A drip of some substance that was unidentifiable in this degree of light hit the ground. Another drop of it hung from its perch, and joined the next drop, and another, and yet another followed. The final drip yanked him into consciousness, and he sat up, beads of sweat hanging on to his forehead.

"Where am I?"

_Unnnnngghhh......_

The dark pupils of his eyes whisked about the dim area, a cold feeling of dread sweeping over him. He looked down to see that he had... shrunk, and then it hit him that he was a child again. A human child.... The boy that was Giovaanni looked down at his small hands, that were covered with a thick film of something or other. He felt the floor beneath him: it was dirt. "What is going on?!"__

_Mommy..... where are you...? I'm scared!! Get me out of this place, Mommy!!_

Giovanni stood up on his legs, stumbling foward in the inadequate light, only to hit a.....wall. No, not a wall. He felt around, and poked his hand through. Another feeling of dread washed over him when he felt another "wall" as he moved his arm. They were BARS, and not just any bars.... grimy bars..... dirty bars.... bars used to hold.... an animal inside a cage......?

He didn't have much time to realize what was happening, for it was then that he heard the distant creaking of an old door as it opened, and then the faint sound of two voices, fading in and out as they went around corners and down the corridor towards him.

".........course we appreciate the sacrifices you have made...."

"........not a factor, I can assure you. Gloria hasn't the slightest....."

".........risky? What if the P.A.H.P.A. arrests or even......"

".....don't know this technology. They won't even know where to......"

".......rather cocky....."

".......only the truth......"

"......still, I believe....."

".....opinion, not mine. Ah..... we are......."

Giovanni's eyes widened at each new word. "They can't..... do this to me!!!"__

_I'm hungry......_

He peered outside of the grimy, gritty bars, trying to see who was coming. But he found himself fighting against the urge to back away, in fear of what they might do to him. It was as if he didn't have any control over his movements, as he hid at the corner of the small cell, curling up into a ball wth the Rattata that were nesting there.

"......nearing him....."

The sound of footsteps came to its peak, and stopped arubtly, the sound echoing around the dank dungeon. Giovanni could hear breathing.... one dark and heavy, anticipating..... the other nervous and quick, as if dreading.

"....Sir. He's only....." A smaller, quieter voice. 

"A child?" The darkness that resounded in the next voice was so subtly malicious that it seemed like a candy coated with poison....

"Well, yes. He's only a small boy... Sir, if I may say so, we should find a.... more mature subject. One who would---"

"Are you saying that my son is _incompetent_, Edward?"

"Well-------no. But I was a child once.... Those really _are_ the hardest years....." A shuffling of feet, an uncomfortable shifting of weight. "Later, that's what makes you feel weak....."

"Do _you_ have any reason to be weak?"

"No! Of course not, sir!"

"Really? You certainly sound it."

"No, sir, I'm just------excited about completing my internship with the other students. That's all."

"....Fine, then. Open the door, will you?"

"All right, Professor Demoni," another shuffle, the sound of keys jingling, and then the distinct noise as the keys were inserted into the keyhole of a metal door and the creak as it opened.

It all stopped abruptly.

"Professor, sir?" Came the shaky voice of the younger scientist.

"What is it?"

"Are there any spiders down here?"

"I should hope so, or else our ecosystem would be overrun with insects. Why do you ask?"

"...............Nothing, sir. The door is open."

One last, loud creak, as the door slammed open with reluctant force.

The boy that had made himself known, a deep, hidden part of Giovanni's soul, didn't move from his curled-up position. He didn't even open his eyes. He just wanted this to be over. But _they _wouldn't. _They_ were here to accomplish something, and _they _wouldn't leave until _they_ had fulfilled their task.The boy squeaked as he heard the older scientist walking towards him, and he drew his knees up, wrapping his dirt-streaked arms around them, his eyes widening and shaking uncontrollably.

What he saw was a man, standing in front of him. Although he was in reality a small man, he looked huge, as he was an adult and was sillouhetted against the small bit of light that came from the hallway that led to the cell. Because of the lighting, it was hard to make out his features, but this much was clear: he had dark brown hair, probably lighter if it had been in the sun, which frayed off to one top side, as if he didn't have enough time to comb it both ways in the morning. He was also wearing a lab coat, and seemed to have fair-complected skin. Behind him, the other man stood, and although he was almost completely enveloped by the oppressive darkness, it could be discerned from the large amount of light reflecting off of his eyes that he wore glasses. A few times he would push them up with one finger, even as he stared at the small boy, as if they were too large and had a tendency to slide down the bridge of his nose.

"Vanni..... I'm sorry I had to leave you alone."

The voice.... disturbingly familiar.....

_Alone...? I want Mommy...._

"Yes, I know you do, but she's on a trip....."

"......What...?!" Adult Giovanni could feel his vocal cords loosen as he yelled out. "I didn't say---!!!!"__

_D-----daddy? _The child Giovanni looked up with enlarged eyes in innocent hope, and the adult gazed blankly in perpetual shock. He thought he had seen the man before, but the pervading darkness casted an impermeable shadow on his self-proclaimed father. He was shocked further that his own words were not the ones heard by these men, but the words of his younger self, of innocence, of love, of purity... of veritable weakness.

"Yes, it's me..... I'm sorry you're down here. It was necessary....." Professor Demoni looked around with a furtive gaze, and then leaned in towards his son, putting a hand to the side of his face and whispering. "....Because I need you to do something very important for me.... and guess what? You're the ONLY one who's able to do it!"

It seemed as if the man knew how to fool children.

"Do you take me for a fool?! Why did you lock me up?!"__

_Okay, Daddy...._

"Impossible...how could I fall for this?! For the worthless words of my father?! Why the hell are you LISTENING to him!!!???"

_What do I 'gotta do?_

"Nothing, really...." Professor Demoni helped the small boy to his feet, taking his hand as they walked out of the cell, past that other man, who looked a bit disshevelled. He followed them as the Professor and his son walked along. "Just help me with an _experiment...."_

Giovanni's blood froze in his veins the minute that word was said, and he suddenly found that he had free reign of every movement in his past self. He jerked away from his father's hand, tearing away from him through the hall. But the man didn't bother to grab him. Giovanni froze, icy sweat creeping down his brow as he slowly turned around, and realized that his... father... was still walking, talking in a quiet voice, with his hand still clutching at a nonexistent hand.

"No... impossible..." Giovanni uttered in a hushed voice. He then looked down at his own childish hand, to the place where it should have been, at his father's side, and then back again. "Completely... how could I.... he's still walking... no... I have to stop it... I can't.... let.... him.....

Giovanni had been stuck in a strangely calm state throughout the entire memory, but now, as he saw his father, the other scientist, and the invisible outline of his past self walk along the corridor, towards the darker side of the old dungeon, the light dimming with every step....

......He screamed.

"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Giovanni cried, suddenly, in the shrill voice of a child. "NO, YOU CAN'T _DO _THIS!!!!!!!!" He yanked at the air the scientist was holding, wanting to pull his younger self away from the twisted man, but to no avail. He cried out, sounding more and more like a desperate child, as tears even rolled down his face, wailing and screaming like a banshee, while his father calmly walked forward, murmuring words in a soothing tone. Giovanni finally clutched at his father's hand, pulling him away with all his strength, but again, nothing happened. When he found that the hand felt like steel, being carried on an unstoppable treadmill, he stopped walking and stood, his small feet planted on the grimy floor. He was too desperate, screaming and crying, to even realize that he was now being dragged along, his knees scraping against the floor of the hall as he tried to stop the upcoming events, trying to somehow cease his future torment....

But of course, nothing changed. It was all a memory... an unchangable memory that Hojo had tweaked into a distorted, perverse kind of torture.

Giovanni finally let go, letting his small body flop to the ground, sobbing weakly into the dirty floor as his father rounded the last bend in the corridor, leaving the boy who was really a man to his own, lonesome self. The only source of light had been the flashlight that the younger scientist had been holding, and now it was gone, all gone, leaving Giovanni in the cold pitch-blackness.

He closed his eyes, curling up into himself, completely devastated by the discovery of this unacknowledged, unreleased pain that had been buried in the deep darkness of his heart years before.

_Daddy.... _he heard his subconscious, the voice of his inner child, and he shuddered, hugging himself tighter. _How much will it hurt? Like an ant bite or somethin'?_

"Like hell...." Giovanni's small hands grabbed at his hair, and he tugged at it as he talked to himself between sobs. "Like---like---_hell, _do you _understand?!"_

"Not even as bad as an ant bite, Vanni," Demoni's voice came, a poison coated in milk chocolate. Giovanni could hear the magnified sound of footsteps as his father led his past self up a flight of stairs, to a hallway above the dungeon, but not yet in the house. "You see, an ant bite is meant to weaken you, to hurt you, and it's completely at random where it bites you. However----these shots will be timed and positioned perfectly, and are meant to help you become stronger. How does that sound?"

_Umm....uhh......_

"Lies........ALL.....LIES........" Giovanni said through grit teeth. He pulled out a handful of hair from his scalp, holding it in front of his eyes before he growled at it and threw it behind him. His eyes darkened, and he began to wipe the tears away with the back of his hand.

"Why the _hell_ am I crying!??!" Giovanni staggered to his feet, albeit weakly, and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. He narrowed his eyes as he looked towards the direction that his father and his past self had gone. "Damnit... that------that-----RUNT-------inside......" He made his left hand into a fist and hit his own chest, as if trying to kill any remnant of a weak emotion that he hadn't already destroyed inside of his heart. However, the force of the punch was strangely weak itself, and he frowned even further, pulling the hand away and flexing his boyish fingers.

"Strange.... almost... as if... my dexterity....." He brought his right hand up as well, flexing all of his fingers together and comparing the way that they moved. His eyes widened. "I'm not----I can't-----my hands---aren't-----equal!??! .....But.... I was ALWAYS----always----ambidextrous!!!!"

His face paled. "...........Surely, that couldn't have been caused as well----by----"

But he had no more time to ponder, as he suddenly found himself standing behind his father and another image of his past self as they both ascended the staircase, with the other scientist in the lead. The child's naiveté was seen in his light and happy eyes, so willing was he to believe anything his father said: everything was true and good, nothing was false, nothing was evil. Despite that he had been shut up in a cell for God knew how long, he still trusted that man, a fatal mistake the adult in Giovanni was thoroughly remorseful at.

_Sounds neat!_

"Good!" They finally came to a door---a wooden door, padlocked on one side. Demoni motioned for the other man--Edward--to open it, but as he moved out of the way, he turned towards his son, causing the other man to be blocked from Giovanni's view. "Now, son.... remember..... it will hurt just a teeny-weensy bit, but you'll be stronger afterwards, okay?"

_Okay, Daddy..._

"Bastard..........You are nothing but a BASTARD!!!" Giovanni rammed his fist into the scientist's jaw. No effect. He swung again, but the man felt nothing. He relented when the other man unlocked the door and opened it, revealing what was inside. The boy glared with fury as his eyes fell upon the sight of the laboratory, hot-blooded anger at the sharp-ended scalpels or the bubbling liquid in the test tubes paling in comparison at both the fear and anger induced by the syringes. He knew what would come next, and could only hope that this nightmare would somehow end before its ugly climax.

It didn't.

"Now, I know this looks kind of scary, but trust me---it's all safe!" Demoni smiled, leading the boy. Again he ran away, fully aware of the impending torture. Then the nature of the memory changed. No matter where Giovanni was in the room, he felt the madman grabbing his hand. But he was nowhere NEAR the professor. He was on the opposite side of the room.

"WHAT..?"

He ran towards the other man, staring up at the glasses, which was the only thing visible about him. He forcefully pleaded,

"How can you let this happen?! You cannot do this to a human!"

No answer. He was lifted onto something.....it was a chair. But the chair was at the other end of the room! 

"How can this BE?"

Hanging loosely off of it were leather straps and buckles, on the arm rests, the legs, and the backside. Demoni began to take the straps and tie the boy down, hard enough so that he wouldn't escape. He had enough mercy to make them loose enough so that blood could flow through his veins. And Giovanni, sitting on an invisible chair could not move under their weight.

"See.... this is for your protection. Some of these---" he picked up a syringe and pointed to it. "---will make you act differently, and we don't want you to hurt yourself, now, do we?"

The adult in Giovanni had stopped boiling. Gradually, disbelief began to swim through his troubled mind. Disbelief that his own father, his own flesh and blood, one of the reasons he was actually _alive_, could do this to him. That disbelief swelled into dismay, and eventually culminated at a distorted blend of anger and distressed shock, that stole away his words as the boy nodded, not feeling any need to struggle against the tight straps. The memory changed course again, and the boy found himself IN the chair. No matter where he went he would still be in that chair. And looking up at his father in complete loathing.

"Now...." his father took that same syringe and approached him, kneeling down on one knee. "Are you right or left-handed?"

_Uh... right, I guess..._

Elder Giovanni's dirt-streaked face contorted in puzzlement. "But then--my thesis.... Must be correct...." 

"Okay, then......." Demoni moved over to the boy's left side and used his left hand to pinch a bit of skin in the boy's upper arm. Shortly after, he very precisely and very methodically inserted the needle, pressing down the tab and then quickly pulling it out. He stood up, looking down at his boy. "How does that feel?" 

That sickening sensation of being drugged was upon him again. AGAIN. He could almost see Ivy, blood gushing from her heart and lungs, laughing bitterly in his face, mouthing "You can't escape". 

_It HURTS!!!!_

"AGHHHHHH!!"

"Really, now?" Demoni stood back, putting a finger to his chin and scratching it. Even now, it was hard to make out his face.... so hard..... "How do you feel? How is your left hand?" 

He opened and closed his left fist, feeling some strength, but more pain and dullness than anything. There was a swelling of something inside the arm, pushing against the walls of his veins.

_It.... hurts...._

"Why did he do this? What made the bastard inclined to DO this?!" Giovanni snarled.

"Hurts....?" He arched an eyebrow in curiosity. "How does it hurt? Is it a stinging sensation? A headache? A muscle ache? How, Vanni? If you help me...... I'll let you have a materia." 

He blinked his chemical-dulled eyes, filled with hot anger. BRIBERY...TRICKERY...it was all an outright LIE. 

_What's that, Daddy?_

"It's a small...... toy you can use. It shines and it...... lets you use magic," Demoni smiled secretively. At the word "magic", the one with the glasses twitched uneasily.

Giovanni's adult side didn't want to fall for such a ridiculous bribe, but it was tantalizing to the boy, who gave in without hesitation._ Muscle...it hurts...... _

Demoni nodded and took another syringe from the counter and now walked towards the poor child's right arm. "Just a few more......." He administered it as he had with the other side; carefully, precisely, with unquestionable care. "How's that?" 

This liquid added itself to the first concoction, flowing through Giovanni's system, subjecting the boy to more chemicals. His glare intensified as the chemicals coursed through him. He felt feverish. It was as if a virus had suddenly entered into him. _Daddy, I don't WANT any more shots!_

"Daddy" wasn't listening. He laughed quietly, walking back to the counter and bringing with him seven MORE syringes. He took the first one and pulled down the boy's shirt, quickly injecting the chemicals into his chest. "How's that? How are you feeling now?" 

He could hear himself SCREAM as his chest was punctured, still glaring. He again struggled fiercely, grabbing the straps with his hands, both aching now, and pulling at the restraints, kicking wildly, throwing his head against the chair, banging it again and again. 

"Sir........" The lower-ranked scientist suddenly broke in. "I think that's enough-----"

"SILENCE!!!!!!!!!!!" Demoni suddenly roared, whirling upon the intern. "Only _I_ will decide when I am finished, UNDERSTOOD?!?!?!"

"Yes.... sir......"

"Good," Demoni calmed down, and, holding two of the other syringes in his hands, administered one to the left ankle and the other to the right. The pain was now stinging, leaving a sharp ache, but Giovanni hardly noticed the sting, slamming his head against the chair, not caring that there were bruises forming, not caring that his head was beginning to ache through this, and not caring that the animal in him was being released. 

"NO, WAIT----" Demoni suddenly yelled, lunging forward towards the writhing boy. He grabbed Giovanni by the shoulders roughly, his fingers digging into the child's shoulders as he yelled:

"Don't you DARE do that, Zero-X.

"Don't you DARE try to kill my son------just to keep yourself out of my hands. DON'T YOU DARE."

He did not stop, but the professor releasing his shoulders indicated that the boy stopped. He stopped as well. A rage combined with his present anger overtook him, a rage that was separate from him: a completely different being caged deep within his soul. The adult struggled against his father's rough grip, of course not affecting the outcome at all, the distant past having been carved out long before he was awakened from the slumber that been his ignorance. What had already been ground out and shaped in the stone of time could not be changed, which only fed Giovanni's hot anger, raising the crushing impact of this nightmarish memory even further. But was it a nightmare? Or was it real? Was it perhaps, not real in the present, but real in the past? Did its perturbing events actually unfold, or was it only a grotesque fabrication twisted in its interpretation? 

"Real......" The adult choked as he felt the pain of the chemicals shoot through his seven-year old self, the heat of the anger rising as the chemicals worked on his brain. 

"Good....." Demoni's tight grip was slowly released and he stood back, staring into the darkened irises of the boy. "Just a few more injections, and then......." He smiled. "My work will be finished and you..... my son...... shall take hold of the power which should be rightfully inherited into our family name....... through the....." He looked down at the boy and noticed that the hue of the drops of blood that were slowly flowing down his arms was gradually changing color, from a healthy, crimson red to the deep, dark gloom of midnight black.

"Through the..... blood........ Heh-heh....." He smiled then, his lips upturning into a vicious grin. "So, now..... How do you feel? Worse? Better? Stronger? Weaker? Tell me....." He clasped his hands together and arched an eyebrow quizzically at his.... son.

The anger had blurred into near-submission. He blearily glowered at his father, and every word escaped him. It was all too much for him to bear: so many injections, so much of this foreign fluid swimming around in his body, making him feel things that he shouldn't feel, forcing him to think things that he shouldn't think, forcing him to BE something that he wasn't supposed to be. And even more... his_ father..._ was doing this all to him, the one who had raised him from the time he was born, the father who he had once trusted, loved, honored, and respected was the one who was.... DESTROYING him with these damnable drugs. Just like that, unmeasured rage engulfed both Giovanni of the present and past, some spark of anger that exploded into a dark wave of unbridled hatred, combined with pain of every sort that made his heart scream in sordid agony. This hatred for that voice, its tenor avaricious for his son's pain, expanded until this rage filled his small muscles, lending him unparalleled strength. It grew inside of his body, and he scrunched his face with pain, finally screaming,

_I FEEL-------------LIKE _THIS_!!!!!_

The straps began to tear and rip as he wrested the abominable restraints, and he hurled them aside, his eyes burning with unrestrained rage. With a pained scream of the damned, he rushed at his father, grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the floor. The boy backed away, and regaining his senses for a minute, as the adult side watched in disbelief at what he had done. They were once again separated. He was still sullen. Normal reaction or not, normal _strength_ or not, his father _deserved_ it. 

_Daddy? I didn't wanna hit you..._ His eyes began to moisten, not out of sadnesss, but fear. _What'll I tell Mommy? What am I gonna do?_

"You recieved... what was coming to you," Giovanni's older self murmured as he shook his head at the fallen figure.__

_I hit Daddy......_

_I HIT DADDY!!_

For a last time the memory changed its game. The adult physically separated from the child, and stood watching him sob. The latter ran out of the room, shoving the scientist aside in a frenzy to get out, to get away from this place. His sobbing escalated into a bawling as he fled, his little legs loud on the floor as he ran through the hall. It was so big... he was getting tired... it was such a long way.... the hallway seemed endless. But then, the sight of an incline greeted him, and he ran faster, his eyes blurry and red with tears, stumbling up the stairs, until he hit the door. He shoved it open, running to the door that led out of the house, crying on the doorknob, and turned it in his frenzy, finally shoving it open. The first sight that met him was the light, the sun... that was so painful, the blinding rays, both to him and his older self, who had followed him at a slower pace, controlled by anger and not sadness. But past the rays, past that hateful golden light, was a shadow. A tall, well-built shadow, of strength and of security, walking towards him. Bawling as loud as ever, he threw himself into his mother's arms.

The mother in question had just come from a rather long business trip in Italy; she was the vice president of a chain of Pokémon breeder schools that was centered there, and had actually planned on coming back a week later, but when her conferences had ended surprisingly early, she had not hesitated in the slightest to come back to her husband and son.

However, now as she stepped out of the backseat of the limousine that she had been riding, she was shocked to see her only child jumping on her and clutching for his mother like a young bird flying from the bleak world and back into its nest. Puzzled and a bit frightened, she immediately kneeled down, putting her arms around the small boy and bringing him into her reassuring grasp.

"Shhhh......" she closed her eyes and ran her fingers through the childish down that was hair on his head. "What's wrong, Vanni?"

Big tears dripped down his moist face, reducing his words into incoherent wails as he tried to tell his mother, this stable foundation that after this terrible experience. She was his only shelter, the only thing certain in his world... his mother. He knew she would never betray him, never hurt him, never cause him any pain.... He knew that she would make what was wrong right, that she would be a healer to his emotional wounds. She could not fail him now.

The mother sat there for a long amount of time, and she would have stayed there, comforting her child, for as long as he needed it. She was a loving, caring mother, and as soon as the sobs had been reduced into small breaths and tears, she pulled him away and smiled into his face. "There, there, honey....." And then she softly, soothingly repeated the question. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." However, it wasn't Giovanni who had answered. It was the man who had just walked out of the house, and who seemed to be forcing the smile that adorned his face, His hands were clasped in front of him, and in his eyes hid a dark expression. The younger scientist seemed to have vanished, perhaps through one of the secret back ways in the old mansion. "Giovanni just got locked down in the dungeons is all---here, I'll clean him up--" He leaned forward, his arms outstretched towards the boy in false concern. 

Giovanni clung to his mother even tighter, going into hysterics again, violently shaking his head, yelling and screaming "NO" over and over again. He was going out of control, no longer blind to his father's masquerade. He buried himself deeper into his mother's arms, trying to make himself smaller, to hide away from the maniac that was his father. 

The mother frowned, hugging her son tighter as well, and as she stared off into space, a dark look came over her face. "What.... did you do.....?" 

"Me? I did nothing, Gloria." Demoni said levelly, calmly, without emotion. "I accidentally locked him in the dungeons after one of my research experiments, and-----"

"Experiments....?"

"Indeed. On the effects of----"

The mother--Gloria--suddenly grabbed Giovanni, her eyes wide with panic as she stared at his sleeves, tattered and torn, punctured with needlemarks..... the red sweater that he was wearing looked as if it had been speared through by countless knives.

"Vanni...." she whispered, looking into the blotchy, reddened face of her child. There were tears in her eyes. "Vanni.... please..... _please_.... tell me what happened...."

Her husband simply looked on with a cold gaze, slowly moving to the back of Gloria, where he was able to shoot his son---his _son_--a glare of pure ice.

_You tell her and you'll be sorry. _It said. _You'll be so sorry....._

Giovanni yearned to tell her the whole story, to shed light on what had happened, to pour his heart and soul out to his mother, but that glare, that glare of steel that rammed into his own eyes, blurred by tears of terror, kept silencing him before he could begin... before he could tell her anything. He looked up helplessly into her eyes, lip quivering in stark fear, communicating to her silently that he could not utter a word, though he desperately wanted to say everything, say how his father did this to him, made him sit and be injected by force, about how he felt more awful than he had in his life, and that he threw his father to the ground..... but that single glare grabbed him by the tongue.

She saw that look in the eyes of her child, and without even looking up at her.... husband.... without even asking any questions, she narrowed her eyes and said in a cool, calm voice:

"Did.... Daddy do something to you, honey?"

Giovanni nodded shakily, so filled with fear of that man that loomed like a dark storm cloud behind him, menacing and pernicious.

The man muttered something under his breath. "Don't listen to him. He's only a child, after all, a child who--"

"GET_OUT."

The voice came strong and biting, of a tone so dark that it could have pierced the dark heart of the strongest armored knight.

"But, Gloria...? Surely, you must--"

"NOW." It came even stronger, and she took her hands from Giovanni's shoulders, whirling around and using those same, caring hands to grab Professor Demoni's collar and shake him violently.

"GET_OUT, DAMN YOU."

And so had his father. Demoni stared in shock at his raging wife, who now grabbed him and practically threw him to the ground in her wrath.

"I don't care WHERE you go, just NEVER_TOUCH MY SON _again._" She suddenly shook her head, and tears could be seen in her eyes. "You told me you stopped testing.... you stopped experiments..... I KNEW you must have been lying.... I was an idiot to think you wouldn't."

Demoni only stared upwards, sitting on the ground where he had been thrown in a mix of disbelief and shock.

"Gloria... another chance....... please, another _chance......_ I can stop myself... I.... I can......."

"No. You can't."

She gave him one last glare.

"GO."

He stared back, the evil in his eyes replaced by fear.... Then.... he simply stood up, walked to the Mercedes that was parked in the space just outside the mansion, stepped in, and drove off.

Giovanni would never see him again.

His adult self now walked towards the child and his mother, having done nothing until now. There were haunting memories bubbling up inside his mind. "I remember, now....this is why he left. This is why I never saw him. She drove him away....away from me. I don't remember her being this way. No...I remember her being nothing but cold. Is this memory real? It can't possibly be. I don't remember any of it. Was that because I wanted to shut it out?"

He reached far back into his younger self. If this was truly not his memory, but someone else's, he would see its falsehood immediately. But everything was real. It wasn't a fantasy or something imagined and dreamt up by a twisted mind. It was his past. But one thing, pride, prevented him from accepting it fully. 

He looked at his younger self, hurt and fearful, an innocent that had been wronged. Him, innocent? He shook his head in dismay. Striding up to the small boy, he questioned in a tone harsh and cold.

"Are you... me?"

The past remained silent, having nothing to offer him except things that had taken place. 

"You CAN'T be me..."

A sound of soft crying, but disconnected from him, distant. 

"Yes... you are a weakling. _I_ am _not_ a weakling!"

No answer.

"You're such a pathetic excuse for a boy, weeping in your mother's arms. Why don't you be STRONG?! Why are you still crying?! It IS because you are weak, isn't it? No doubt. How is it that YOU ever grew to be a man?! Incompetent WORM! You try to mock me with these..... false.... memories, by seeking solace from MY mother!! And she only shows you love because you are a worthless MISTAKE to mankind. She managed to pity you, to give you comfort, when what you needed was to be-----treated as I was by her. There was never a kind word, never that... that caressing! That affection! That... that _love!"_

He turned away, stiff.

"...NEVER."

But the past couldn't respond, and his young self only continued to sob as he held his small hands to his face.

_Mommy... I need a band-aid._

The woman simply stood there, staring after the cloud of dust that had been kicked up by the fleeing car. She then turned around, and blinked for a moment at her son. The anger had left her, and was instead replaced with a sad, sad gaze.

She kept on looking at her son like that until she put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it with the back of her hand.

"A----a band-aid?" She smiled, weakly. "Of course, Vanni."

She then took his hand into hers, and began walking forward, but only at a slow, steady pace that she was sure would be comfortable with her son. She would go out of all ways for... Giovanni, as she clasped his small fingers in her own, elegant hand......

"Don't worry, honey...." Her voice seemed to be fading, however... the farther they walked, the more distant it became. "Everything will be all right...."

"Why....don't I hear her anymore------ ?" 

Denial was no longer an option. "Why are you fading?" 

The sillouhette of his mother and himself disappeared into the house. He could not hear what was going on in there, but only see, and feel.. And what he saw made him tremor, shake, and spiral out of control. "Why are we in the bathroom? Yes, to get a band-aid. But for what? No... you'll see the blood. Damn you, bitch! Your eyes are cold..... your voice is cold..... you've changed. You see the blood..." All of a sudden he was inside himself again, staring up at his aghast mother. "Your eyes are cold..... Everything about you is... ice..... cold...."

Sweat ran down his face, which was pierced by those icy pupils. 

"Mother...despite all _this_, you still love me....."

His gaze quivered while staring into that dispassionate face. "...rig_ht?"_

Silence.

"Don't... BE this way... why are you... BECOMING... this way?!! 

Her lips moved faster and faster, but he could discern nothing. "Why won't you answer me?!! ANSWER me, Goddamn you!!!"

She turned away, just as rigid as before, not loosening in the slightest. Her lip curled in a mix of disgust and horror at the blood: there were no words needed to decipher THAT expression. The boy grabbed her sleeve: she pulled away. He tried again, not even his own voice could be heard by him. Again she pulled away. One last time he tried, and she grabbed him, just like she grabbed his father, and shook him by the collar, her eyes engulfed in pure ice. The boy could only watch as she walked out of the bathroom, stiffly, rigidly. She was different exiting than from when she was entering. He could only stand there and watch... watch as his mother became the evil, satanic woman whom the world knew as Madame Boss. But not of her own volition. Because of his own blood. That revolting, repulsive blood...

Giovanni hung his head as his surroundings slowly faded into black, and he encountered the schizophrenic sensation of fitting himself into a different body, a different mindset as the blackness of his memories then faded into the bluish hue of the liquid that he was imprisoned in... and through that liquid.... the sight of Hojo, who didn't even seem to be paying attention to the mutant; he was sitting at a nearby table, the glasses resting on his nose, making yet another barrier between his eyes and the world as they darted over a game of solitaire.... as if... Giovanni was less important.... than cards....

Slowly, painfully, the latter's crimson eyes opened, drilling past the tangle of wires, through the glass at Hojo. The expected snarl from him was weak and subdued, like the sound made from a smaller animal. That memory that had just played in front of him, so despicable in every way, had left him completely wordless and had for now, overpowered his will to retaliate. It led him to think instead of speak, and the harder he thought, the less inclined he felt to use words.

The scientist only glanced up at the snarl. He smiled slightly as his eyes went back down to his game, and as he laid a two atop an ace in the top right-hand corner of the table, he began to speak quietly, with a sinister undertone.

"Computer... engage thought-projection simulator."

A monotonous voice replied: "Orders...... received. Thought-projection simulator.... confirmed." There was a small beep, and hard breathing could be heard through a speaker at the top of Giovanni's study cell---the hard breathing that was still being carried out in the subconscious depths of what still remained of his humanity in his mind.

"So.... I trust you slept well?" Came Hojo's voice once more, his eyes still focused on the game as he spoke.

Giovanni growled in irritability, at both the scientist's rather rhetorical inquiry and the wires that were once again crowding him. _What do you think? _His thoughts returned to the memory he had been thrust out of, clamping his claws on his head, only to grasp those damnable wires, that made him all the more distressed, and he shook his head angrily.

Hojo arched an eyebrow, his eyes resting on one of the cards for a moment as he contemplated his next move.

"I think you should be grateful. After all, I just showed you what you have been too cowardly to face. Ah... of course, the jack of hearts....." he reached for his hand and set the card upon the queen of spades, then moving a set of ten to three upon it.

_Grateful?! For what, may I ask?! My past that would have been best left forgotten?!! _He growled , baring his cruel fangs as his jaws parted, the bluish fluid leaking in and choking the immense beast. 

"I suppose......" Hojo finally leaned back from his game, putting his hands behind his head as he raised his greenish eyes towards the creature. "That you are the type of...." he smiled, stretching the next word, "....._person_ who believes that ignorance is a bliss....?"

The monster's hellish eyes locked with the green ones--odd, it was an almost... _unnatural _green, but the assaults on his pride drew him away from that thought. The overemphasis of "person" engulfed him with renewed rage, and he roared at him again, feeling the inevitable punishment of a throatful of the irritating liquid. _Both you and I know that I am a PERSON; I don't know what ignorance you are talking about. _However, even he knew that it was a lie that wasn't even feasible.

"Ignorance?" Hojo slowly rose to his feet. He smiled once more and clasped his pale hands behind his back, walking towards the cell. "Indeed, you were ignorant of how... important your blood was, weren't you, Zero-X?"

That name.... that _infernal_ name.... That pitiful excuse for a name he _loathed _to admit was his. It was so..... insignificant. The name of a lab specimen. What he was at this current time. Something dispensable, disposable. A name that could and would be easily forgotten. A name that reminded him of his current status in life: below the human beings that he had murdered and once had been. But, that was in the past. He did not want to accept it, he had been defiant so far, but slowly but surely, the will that he had once claimed to be stronger than Mewtwo's, an encounter also forgotten, was cracking. Slowly the foundations of his humanity were collapsing, leaving nothing to support the weight of the will, gradually, causing his once-unbendable ambition to crumble.  
_No...... do not call me..... Zero-X! I am Giovanni!! I ALWAYS WILL BE GIOVANNI!!! NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT!!!_

And it was crumbling faster than he realized.

"Hm.... you seem to be rather convinced about that, don't you?" Hojo put a finger to his chin. "Then again, I suppose that when a style of life is so ingrained into a creature's mind, there is no possible way for them to ever see the world from a _different_ perspective....." He nodded to himself. "Indeed.... you..... the _leader_ of Team Rocket.... so used to being respected and feared, is now looked down upon in disgust and hatred." He shook his head, his brow furrowing mockingly as he looked off into space. "Such a.... shame for you, is it not?"

But... how did he.... _know_ who......?!??!

The reptile's blood-colored eyes widened in renewed vexation. _How did you know---who I am---was----am?! _He roared in a panic, his eyes wandering feverishly around the cell, half-expecting to see a bizzare mind-reading device or something such as that, but all he could see were the latched hooks and wires, still pumping chemicals into his body. The condescension hardly registered, overshadowed by that agonizing detail: that the scientist knew his former occupation, when they had never set eyes on each other.

"Heh-heh.... Oh, come now!" Hojo chuckled to himself. "Even with your now-limited brain power, your experience as a crime lord should have told you that Ivy couldn't possibly have been working alone. No, no, no.... In fact, she has been working _for_ us---Shin-Ra Incorporated--for over a year now, monitoring your plans and schemes, your whereabouts... and of course, 'helping' you gain your full potential. Her drive was... personal revenge, I believe, but in the process, we benefited."__

_Yes....I did not forsee that. But it couldn't have been the result of my brain power being reduced. After all, I was human with a normal brain...and I STILL have a normal brain, but..._He dug his claws into his snout in frustration, drawing the infernal black blood. _Something is getting in the way of it. It must be this..bestial form...when I was completely unaltered, I would have deduced that it was not an individual plan, but..._He dug the claws in further, unable to think straight, and only succeeding in confusing himself. _But, if I was normal before, why---why didn't I SEE it before?! Why?! _The monster's features were consumed by rage as he flailed violently, bashing his head and arms against the tangle of wires, spitting acidic drool. This time the primal cries he made were accompanied by a jet of burning flame, dissolving one of the wires. 

"Perhaps because you weren't even human then," Hojo said calmly, his eyes following the flame that slowly dissolved into the water. "And I'd be careful with those wires; it could be quite painful to sever them."

An electrical jolt of enormous proportions was suddenly sent into the water.

Hojo smiled. "See?"

"GRAGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" 

The jolt was intensified by the conductivity of the liquid, sparing no organ of the beast as it electricuted him, the searing hundreds of volts coursing through every sinew like ten Thunderbolts aimed at his entire body. The jolt was brief, but damaging, and he felt his flesh sizzling and smoking afterwards. Pain accomplished its purpose brutally and swiftly, but the monster's immense pride and sense of self-worth went beyond all reason.The giant mass of flesh was thrown into jerky convulsions, but upturned his head defiantly.

_I was human!! Do you hear me, whoever you are?! I was-----_

He threw his head sideways, tightening the wires that sank into an open gash in his throat. An anguished roar, a clear snap of an entire row of wires, a sickening zap, and a feral whimper.The creature once called the leader of Viridian Gym clawed at his head, still smoking with the electricity. This simple action, though, was denied him by the wires that hung from his snout.A gruff sound resembling a whine was heard from him, as he clawed at them again, finally snapping the abominable objects that pumped chemicals into his brain, and the surge of electricity shot into his brain, intensifying in the very center, and a virtual scream leapt from his 

hooked throat, echoing in every corner of the laboratory. When the liquid emanated its normal hue, when the final remnants of electricity had dissipated , Giovanni let his head dangle to the floor of the tube,only held up by the wires flowing from the left side of his massive, coal-black head. 

_.....hu.....man....._

He now had been utterly convinced that he was to cooperate fully with the superior being, or suffer the consequences. For the sheer capacity of Giovanni's ego, that was seemingly next to impossible, but this jolted his mind as well as his body. He would have to become _willingly obedient _if he was to be..and live... in that Hell. 

Hojo saw the new dullness in the monster's eyes after the round of shocks, and turned away, speaking even as he walked away. "Good! Remember, Zero-X, a creature cannot act like a human lest it wishes to be hurt physically and mentally, and although you think yourself as a higher being....

"You are not."

He turned around once more. "You are simply one of my specimens, a very intriguing one, at that, which was a failed experiment long ago and whose only purpose now is to further scientific knowledge in the field of genetics. Perhaps the information that we gain from tests upon you will help us to bring the Gemini to its full potential, and perhaps........ to regain the other."His eyes suddenly snapped upwards, boring into those of the monster. He grinned.

"Other than that, you also serve as an effective bait."

_I'll be used to reclaim the boy....._

His thoughts went to Brock, who was out there somewhere, still roaming free. If that scientist kept to his word, it wouldn't be for long. 

_Bring him to potential.....I am here for research? So you can bring the boy here and   
torture him as well? _His eyes darkened at the thought of that._ Bait.... .specimen...... an..... experiment..... EXPERIMENT........ _

_._The humiliation fell upon his soul like a mallet on the shell of a raw egg, cracking his spirit, which had already begun to split. Giovanni ground his predatory teeth in anxiety; pondering the meanings of words had never returned him with cruelty. But these were words describing his nightmarish reality. Bait was the worm on the fishook: no one cared if the fish devoured it. A specimen was just as disposable. Experiments....were those Pokémon deep in the bowels of island-wide Team Rocket laboratories. He was just the same, if not _lower_, than them. He growled submissively, casting his eyes down to the cylindrical base of the plexiglass cell, asking an--almost--sad question that reflected his weakening faith in himself. _Is that all I am?_

"Indeed," Hojo answered without mercy. "And a failed experiment, at that." He turned towards the control panel. "However... I believe I may find some use for you.... Especially in impressing the... heh-heh... the president, for the time being."

_President? What president? _He gazed up blearily, a low snarl escaping from him as dread began to overtake him, for fear of the unknown.

"George W. Bush.... Oh, yes, you should fear him, indeed....."

_What is he?_

"An imbecile beyond imagination," Hojo scowled downward. "But that is not the president who I am speaking of. I meant to say.... President Shin-Ra, owner of Shin-Ra Incorporated." The scowl turned into smile. "_Surely,_ you've heard of Shin-Ra Incorporated...?"

The monster shook his head, silently hating the tone that was in the scientist's voice: it was as if he expected him to know what it was. He did hear reports of new buildings being erected in Vermillion City from his Grunts, but he found that out much too late. 

"Shin-Ra....." Hojo paused, scratching his chin. He raised his eyes towards Giovanni. "You could call it an organization quite like your own... of course.... quite superior as well, both in its coffers and in its crime. We do everything from a strictly legal point of view.... Rufus is an expert at bending the law to his whim-----but...." Hojo frowned. "He has become a bit unstable since his revival...."

_Superior? Rufus? Revival? What are these? _The creature looked up vacantly towards the outside of the tube, utterly confused. His capacity for normal flow of thought was dwindling at the rate rate as his will was, the amount of information being thrown at his animal brain, further dulled by the wretched chemicals, too overwhelming to process.

"Words... of course..." Hojo turned away. "But, then again, you are currently illiterate, so it is only expected that the brain capacity in other parts of your skull will diminish as well........ Let's only hope that Gemini appears soon, or else I might have to spell your own name out for you in your frustration." Hojo sighed, looked at his watch, and tapped his foot on the ground.

_Gemini....._That name rang forlornly in his emptying head, and he scarcely heard the rest of the scientist's words as he realized that the wronged creature would not take his family's untimely death... no... their barbaric slaughter, lightly. The killer would have to pay.

"Yes, Gemini....." Hojo walked towards a rack of syringes, took a bottle from the counter, and began to fill them with the liquid within. "The first Gemini, anyway. And with the _first_ Gemini, we will be able to reclaim.... the second." His eyes narrowed as he continued with his work. "It took us quite some time to find the first, until Ivy came across it by a stroke of luck, but as for Gemini 2....." His jaw tightened. "We have yet to find it."

_There are two?? _He inquired with decreasing vitality. A growl of irritability was heard soon after, and he shut his glowing eyes in more confusion, his capacity for intelligent thought diminishing.

"Of course. The Geminis were twins in mythology, didn't you know?"

_No, I didn't. But....._He shifted his head sideways much like the manner of a dog, somehow the motion loosening the pull on his aching mass of nerves, restoring, if not his intellect, a degree of the basic desire to learn and understand. _If you are a....... scientist, why do you bother to study myths that have no tangible basis? _

"Why?" Hojo responded, his back turned. "Only the myths turned into reality I can believe, but otherwise, yes, stories are worthless creations of the collective imaginations of all time, and I, for one, am only interested in knowledge."

_What would you possibly want them for? _He inquired again, a dim light appearing in his eyes, feeling the hooks not so tight on his brain for the time being. Now he didn't feel as...stupid or helpless. Maybe that feeling was only chemically induced, and not what he actually was? Or maybe it was only wishful thinking of one disillusioned.

"I want them for scientific data, to help, perhaps, to give more power to this falling human race.... to integrate our foolish, selfish selves with the rest of the kingdoms, phylums, species, what have you, of the world...... both worlds, in fact. However..... when I am finished...." He looked upwards. "They have the use of being two of the most powerful beings on this planet... or the other."

His crimson eyes widened, and his face was once again marked with confusion as he craned his scaly neck, the cords sinking into his brain. _The boy... Brock... a powerful being.... and another planet? What are you speaking of?_

"Brock? Oh, the human name given to Gemini 1.... Yes, him....." Hojo looked at Giovanni condescendingly. "He is most definitely not from my world, but from yours, although a series of.... fortunate circumstances helped him to become what he--it--is now. I doubt it even realizes the full extent of its powers..... _Un_fortunately, it's currently in a state of denial and depression, from the signals that the sensor implanted into it is telling us."

_Depressed......I know why he is depressed......_The monster ground his teeth as he drew up his claws and raked them across the glass, leaving jagged marks in the walls of the tube. 

"Yes, depression...." Hojo continued. "In fact, I might as well check up on his updated index....." It seemed as if the scientist had completed his chore of filling the syringes and now moved over to computer terminal on the other side of the room. After a long silence, only broken by the clickety-clack of keys being punched, Hojo smiled, his back still turned towards his specimen. 

"Add 'hell-bent on vengeance' to that list, would you?" A chuckle came from the back of his throat. "It's sniffing you out... following the trail of your blood..... your scent.... It has a surprisingly keen sense of smell..... Hm. I believe this will be its first time using that.... ability... Yes, disgust is one of the emotions the implant is picking up... Self-loathing..... Yes, I believe so....."

His voice trailed off into incoherent mutterings and then trailed back into plain speech.  
"......amazing, isn't it?"

_Amazing? _He looked away, his chest heaving uncomfortably. _More of...unnerving. He is coming here to kill me.....for murdering his family... _The monster tore his misshapen hands from the glass, hissing in vexed contemplation. _Did I TRULY kill them? No... how can I think that? It was that..... that.... _**Pokémon_ inside of me. Zero-X is to blame. He... I.......... _**A sudden roar shook the bundles of wires and the liquid they were hanging in. It was a roar of despairing acknowledgement of his ruthless actions, and signal that he finally accepted the grim fact that he truly was Zero-X. It was no longer a mutant extension of a human being whose deeds were separate from the latter. Rather, it was a mutant that once had been human, whose every action was connected with that human, because it and him were one and the same.

"Hah," Hojo turned towards the subdued monster. "Roaring will only bring it here quicker....... and according to the readings from the sensors...." He walked towards what seemed to be a storage room. "... You are actually digesting several humans that bear an uncanny resemblance to Gemini's human DNA..... Your body breaking them down into nutrients..... the nutrients being carried to all parts of your bodyto your brain.... by your blood....." 

_Stop it......Damnit, STOP!!!!!_ He was overwhelmed with guilt that stabbed into the far reaches of his blackened heart. At the very thought of those bones, flesh, and tissue that were coursing through his bloodstream as digested _food_, those..children that were so cruelly denied the opportunity to long life, haunted his conscience, and struck back at it with a passionate vengeance, and he roared all the louder, resisting the mind-numbing effects of the chemicals, attacking his cyllindrical cell without restraint. 

"Go, ahead, then!" Hojo called from the other side of the laboratory. "Roar. It makes my job....." He walked out of the spare room, a large dart-firing gun in his hands, which he was currently arming with doses of tranquilizing liquids. ".... much easier." 

"GROAARRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHH---"

The black lizard stopped when his eyes fell upon the potent weapon, and the deafening cry was no more as he gradually recognized the weapon's use and the scientist's intentions. A wavering growl signalled that he could not continue, knowing that if that feral sound lured Brock there , the latter would only feel more pain, more unbearable agony...the younger had enough to deal with already. 

".........RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOORRRRRGHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Too late.

Hojo whirled around toward one of the barred windows on the opposite side of the room, the gun poised surprisingly expertly in his hands.

"GrrrooorrrRRRRGHHSSSSS!!!!!!...." a growl and a hiss was heard as there was a shattering of glass and the sound of twisting metal. Then, accompanying the din of an uncharted roar, there was a soft thump as a shadow descended from the window sill and landed on the ground in a crouch.

_I'll KILL YOU._

Beyond the cords that still held fast to him, the captive reptile could vaguely discern the deformed outline of the creature that had been continuously punished wrongly, whose only thoughts were of vengeance against his family's killer, to kill him, to gorge on the hide that he was close to destroying before, to let the hellish black blood run between his claws. Giovanni set his gaze level with his would-be predator, and he snarled, but the noise weak because of the fluids and that inevitable fear of death. _Don't come closer. That---------human there will capture you._

The shadow continued to approach, and suddenly, two points, to beams of a blazing red inferno were seen.

_LIES...... ALL....... LIES........._

He-----it-----walked forward, hunched over and its arms hanging at its sides, muscles tensed as it's tail whipped furiously behind it.

It snarled, baring it's fangs which seemed to have grown in length.

_.....MURDERER....._

_For once..... I am not lying, boy. _Giovanni bared his fangs as well, but whatever attempts to be intimidating failed; those cursed wires restricted foward movement. He dared not struggle against them, fearing an electric shock, and at the same time, he had to convince the avenging demon that a tranquilizer gun was trained on him. _See, he is ready to shoot at you. Run away before it is too late!!_

_CINDY......_ _SHE.... SHE'S _DEAD_........... And the TWINS...and TIMMY..... and..... and... and..............Tommy..... you made me..... made me........._

Tears in those eyes, those eyes so full of hatred........ Gushing down his face like a waterfall, falling to his neck, his chest, his shoulders, his arms......... those scaled arms.......

_........HE'S DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I KILLED HIM!!!!!!!! YOU MADE ME KILL HIM!!!!!!!!!_

He was hyperventilating, his grey, scaled chest falling and rising at rapid speeds. He held out his arms, his claws, those spikes on his shoulders. Then, he brought the claws to his face, staring down at them. His thought speech quieted as the hands began to shake, and he began to flex those...those talons of death...... As if he was searching for a ghost, a stolen ghost of the tanned skin, the fingers that he only used to help people... HELP-----THEM....

_I.... I killed him..... with these......... my.......... what's left of my.... _**hands_......._**

He slowly looked upward towards the study cell and the creature within, the eyes, which had been subdued for a moment, once more enreathed with the infernos of a fury brought on the by the fires of hell and the spawn of the devil.

_NOW I'LL KILL_ YOU.

The mental threat echoed throughout the caverns of the reptile's brain, that hateful word, "kill" resounding with raised volume. The liquids flowing into his bloodstream pulsed faster as his anxiety heightened, doing the same to the primal instincts. Fear was displaced by ferocity, and he reared up on his hind claws, gripping the front of the glass with giant foreclaws. The low hiss in his throat escalated into a savage snarl as he glared at the smaller mutant in his raging visage, as if daring him to take another step.

And Brock himself...... became a killing machine.

_KILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KILLKILLKILLKILLKILL!!!!!!!!!!! _At the complete lack of remorse shown by the monster, he hissed and was engulfed with energy the hue of midnight. He gave out a cry, the cry of one avenging a ten, a hundred, a _million_ wrongful deaths...... He ran forward, leaping into the air, his arms outstretched as he prepared to slice open the cell and whatever laid inside....

That was when the dart hit.

Brock soared through the air, knocked out almost instantaneously. His momentum caused him to tumble out of control in the air, hitting the plexiglass tube on his back with a sickening crunch.

Then, black blood being trailed down the tube as he slid down its length, he fell to the ground, sprawled out on the cold, tiled floor.

_I... tried to warn you, boy. _The monster bent his head to stare down at the unmoving creature, the wires tightening once more. Gemini's blood left an uneven line of black, and it crawled down like an earthworm, collecting in a small pool of darkness. The larger monster fixated his gaze onto the blood, following the mobile trail with his eyes, widened as if there was raw meat dangling in front of him, and he licked at the glass walls voraciously, while watching the crumpled heap of flesh at the base of the tube.

He caught himself, scratching the right side of his head in a sudden fury, letting small drops of his blood stain the liquid. _So......arrogant...that was not the way to speak to him....what came over me? _His eyes glowed as he pressed his snout against the glass. _Oh yes...Nothing came over me. I was this way since childhood. I came over me. _He scraped at the glass, looking down at the stationary demon. _Brock.... do you hear me?_

"Of course he can't hear you," Hojo said calmly, walking from the shadows. He flicked a switch, illuminating the area and making Brock's blood painfully contrast against the stark white tile. He was bleeding from the back of his skull, it seemed, the puddle of blood collecting around the back of his head.

"Hm....." Hojo dropped the gun and walked to Brock, where he looked down at the unconscious mutant. "So..... I have finally found him...... years of searching.... Hah." He grinned. "Demoni would be proud, I suppose...."

_Demoni._ Giovanni's head jerked upwards, the wires following him._ Did you say my name? _The thought-voice was terse and yet frenzied, even more so as the artificial light, blinding him with the intolerable whiteness, as he tried to comprehend the significance of that name... his family name, being mentioned, and of all people, why did that.... scientist know his........ mother??

"Yes... your family name...." He arched an eyebrow. "Don't you remember? I doubt you could have blocked it out so quickly after being reminded.... Your father....? Do you believe you were his ONLY victim?" Hojo chuckled as he pulled a radio from his labcoat pocket. "Fascinating... fascinating......"

_You mean to say....he acquired the boy, too._ He clamped a hand above his eyes to see past the light, and regarded the knocked-out monster with a degree of pity in his deformed countenance. 

"Yes... and before his birth... his mother," Hojo grinned, putting the radio to his ear. "Yes... ? Rufus. We have them....... both." Hojo smiled at whatever it was that was said to him in the radio. "Indeed..... yes, you can say we defeated the----yes. Politically correct... locked up? Of course. Yes, President Rufus, understood." With that, he put the radio back in his pocket.

There was that Rufus again. Inexplicably, it set the conscious monster on edge. Giovanni clenched his fangs together, hissing viciously as he pressed his muzzle that had ceased to bleed against the glass, a wave of panic overpowering him. _What are you going to do with us?! _

"Do?" Hojo took a PokéBall from the same pocket he had deposited his radio into, paused a moment, and threw the ball at Brock's limp form. The tortured soul disappeared with a blast of crimson light, and the ball returned to Hojo's hand. He took a moment to think, his eyes fixed on the pool of black blood in front of him.

".......Only experimentation...." He raised his eyes and grinned up at Giovanni.

"Only experimentation."

*~*~*

**DMB: **Hooooo, boy! That ain't good! What kind of evil stuff is Hojo planning on doing to our hero and semi villain/semi hero?!? How long will it actually take for DMB to actually PROOFREAD the next chapter?! How long did she take to proofread THIS chapter? Will DMB's current Cowboy Bebop obsession hamper future work on this fanfiction, as B9T thinks it will?!? And most importantly--------WILL THE POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE KILL US ALL?!?!?!?

....Tune in next time to find out! ^_^

**Next Episode: Sympathy for the Devil!**

Er----I mean.....

**TO BE CONTINUED....**

**DMB: **....Damn, I need some hallogenic mushrooms. ::Blinks. Hits head.:: 


	13. Sympathy for the Devil

End of A Reality  
  
by DarkMutatedBrock and Blue9Tiger  
  
*~*~* Legal Stuff: BigMac is copyright to McDonald's.  
  
B9T: Important announcement: due to circumstances beyond our control, DMB is no longer able to continue the fic. I'm indefinitely replacing her, so it's going to suck really soon, but I'll try and make it half as good, at least. Anyway, this is the last chapter that she has contributed her genius to the fic. So, starting in the middle of the last segment, if it begins to get horrible, no questions need to be asked why.  
  
*~*~*  
  
She had to force her way out. That was all that she knew. They wanted her to stay there. They had taken every precaution to make sure she stayed there. Where was there? Where was here, for that matter?  
  
A ragged piece of fabric tore on a protruding branch. She was barely covered by shreds of material that appeared to be the remains of a shirt, letting the chill of the northern forest penetrate her bruised flesh. Only the imminent danger behind her drove her to trudge through the wood, on her hands and knees, shuddering from the bitter cold, faltering at projecting tree stumps, blindly pushing through the obstructing forest.  
  
White, soft, cold.....  
  
Snow greeted her at the timberline. An endless expanse of snow, white all around. A cut decided to open, trickling blood on the snow, staining it a dark red. Her knees staggered, and was reduced to crawling. A desperate swim through the vast whiteness, the rising cold numbing her fingers that clutched each untrod patch of snow as if it was life itself. Every inch was reached with more and more difficulty. The woman's strength was completely spent. With one final futile effort to crawl another inch, the side of her face plunged into the snow.  
  
A far-off light glittered in her blurring vision, amongst what seemed like-- --houses? Before she could see anything more, her strength gave out and she was swallowed in the jaws of unconsciousness.  
  
*~*~*  
  
FEBRUARY 20, ---- 3:37 PM (18 years before current date)  
  
Camera turns around; pans out around a forest with minor jerks and jiggles; the footage is obviously being shot on home video by an amateur. A voice is heard, apparently from the person who is operating the camera.  
  
Man 1: Here we are on the outskirts of Pewter, in Viridian Forest... in case the date is wrong, it's February..... Me and Flint here are looking for a setting for the short film we want to do....  
  
Camera turns around and zooms in on the fuzzy form of a man estimated to be in his early twenties; the camera's focus adjust and we can see that the man is dressed in heavy winter clothing, including black ski pants, large brown boots, and an oversized blue jacket. His face and hair are visible; his skin is a light brown, and his hair is a dark brown and seems to stick out in every direction. His face appears to have high cheekbones and narrow eyes.  
  
Man 1: See, there he is, looking like an idiot as he stands in the snow.... HEY, FLINT!!! Ya said you'd grow into that stuff when you bought it!!!  
  
Flint: (Looks up, grins at the camera.) Hey, I'll bet I could criticize you if you were the one on camera, Dude! So shut up and start looking for a cave or something if you want to make the damn tape!  
  
Man 1 (named "Dude"?): (Laughs.) Yeah, yeah, whatever.....  
  
Camera starts moving up and down as Dude walks forward in the snow.  
  
Dude: Aw, damn, don't want to waste the battery....  
  
Camera is turned off.  
  
--First segment of tape #12683, titled: "UNOFFICIAL RECORD OF POST- DITTWO/PRE-GEMINI PROJECTS" Subscript reads: FOUND ON INTRUDERS #1 AND #2 (FLINT BRAVESTONE & DUDELY [LAST NAME UNKNOWN]; NOT TAPED BY PLANETOUCH MEMBERS." Confiscated from illegal underground lab located in Viridian Forest eleven years before current date. Archived by the PRPL (Pokémon Rights Protection League). *~*~*  
  
Chapter 13: Sympathy for the Devil  
  
He stood at the window, his clear eyes gazing out at the calm skies and the white clouds which floated over the calm, green lands that stretched out for miles. Houses and small buildings interrupted the view here and there, but that was to be expected in such an area as this...  
  
The figure sighed, raising a pale, slender hand to his forehead and pushing a few strands of white hair out of his calm, creaseless face. The clouds suddenly parted in the sky and sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the figure in a blurred, surreal halo.  
  
The figure closed his eyes and then opened them again. They were brilliant white, as if the sunlight itself was being absorbed through them and displayed for all to see. However, the glow emanated was soft and kind, which matched the overall look of the figure; his body seemed thin, almost to the point of fragility, and a white robe hung from his shoulders to his feet, which were bare and seemed to hover just a milimeter over the ground-- -but that could have been a simple trick of the light, just like the way his garment seemed to flow about him like a solidified form of thin air, uninhibited by gravity or any other force of nature.  
  
The figure paused, as if thinking deeply about something or other, and put his hands on the sill of the window leaning forward toward the sun and closing his eyes, as if bathing in its radiance. A smile touched the corners of his lips, a warm, peaceful smile filled with unimaginable charisma.  
  
The scattered light caught a blur of movement along the dirt path, a steady, unswerving motion that left an even rut worn into the road from making this trip a number of times. It entered the tranquil man's sight, nearing the window as the form of a girl on a bicycle deviated from her current course and pointed it off the road, taking a shortcut through the grass. As she rode, her jet-black hair whipped across her bright-eyed visage. Her headband didn't seem to be accomplishing its purpose, but that didn't matter. Her destination was just up the hill.  
  
The figure continued to stand there, his calm eyes still upon the sky as he detected the padding of sneakers upon the floor beneath him, and then the sound of those same sneakers coming up the stairs and into the hallway that led to the very room he was standing in. However, he didn't move a muscle, and he continued to stand with his hands on the sill and his head poised toward the sky. The only thing that moved was his robe, which flowed around him as the waves flowed around a vessel in the sea, and his stark white hair, which fell down to his shoulders and seemed to be lifted effortlessly by the wind which found its way through the window.  
  
With a shrill screech of tires, the girl stopped her bicycle and jumped off, landing lightly on road. She kicked down the metal stand, letting the bicycle lurch to one side, and headed for the door, the pleasant heat of the sun warming her back. It was indeed a beautiful day, one of nature's masterpieces painted with tedious effort. She didn't let it go to waste, and took a whiff of the refreshing air before she rapped on the door.  
  
"Grandpa?"  
  
The figure heard the knock and the voice two floors below, but continued to stand in that sunlight, as if nothing else from heaven to the Earth to hell didn't matter. He turned his head slightly when the knocking continued, and smiled slightly, turning away once more.  
  
"Come in, but he's not here...."  
  
His voice was soft and warm and somehow quiet, even as its sound drifted into the room below and made itself heard to the visitor.  
  
The girl hesitated, her fingers clasping onto the brass doorknob. She knew her grandfather was expecting no guests. It was true that he hadn't been very sociable since he started on some important project. In fact, he had become downright reclusive, speaking to no one save for his perenially eager assistant from the Orange Archipelago.  
  
"That's funny.....wonder who that could be?" she mused as she cautiously turned the knob and swung the door open, letting it knock into the adjacent wall. She entered casually, walking around the furnished room, finding no sign of the stranger anywhere. She searched the first floor of the house, but found no one. Finally her hand came to rest on the banister, and she made her way to the second floor, climbing the staircase. A closed door immediately met her sight, and out of sheer curiosity, she walked towards it, with some caution. She tried the knob. It was unlocked. Caution dispersing, she pushed the door open, the slender figure of a man greeting her eyes. There was silence for nearly thirty seconds, as if the figure hadn't noticed her, until he cocked his head to the side as he still looked toward the sun.  
  
"Lovely day, isn't it?" He said in that same quiet, peaceful voice that resounded as if upon pure gold.  
  
"Yeah...it's beautiful," the girl agreed, brushing a strand of stray black over her ears. She stayed in the doorway. Though appreciative of beauty and those who thought the same, she couldn't help but feel a tad wary about the stranger. There was something...not right about him.  
  
The stranger closed his eyes and turned towards the girl, smiling. "Indeed. With a day like this, it would be hard to predict that the world will soon end.... Would it not, girl?"  
  
He opened his eyes, such warm beacons of light, and yet.... somehow..... completely... impure.... Unassuming as she was, the girl couldn't help but percieve that gaze of a tainted soul, with bane of all natures lurking behind a paper-thin facade of angelic purity.  
  
"Uh-huh---yeah," she returned him an incredulous glance. What was this guy talking about? End of the world? In her time? Get real!  
  
Nevertheless, she was startled when he replied suddenly, as if he sensed her doubt. More importantly, as if he disapproved of it, as that golden smle dispersed into a discontented frown. .He glided away from the window in her direction, his robes sweeping the floor with heavenly grace. He stopped a foot apart from her, and his cloud-like voice filled the room again with the ringing of a winged bell.  
  
"If humanity's opinion is reflected in your cynicism, the end won't be long in coming."  
  
The girl was growing less and less at ease in the presence of this cryptic man. If there was any advice her grandfather gave that she listened to, it was to never trust the drivel of preachers. Science was the guiding light in the screwed-up world of theirs. Being as polite as the sister of such a stuck-up snob such as her brother was, she replied, "Um---right." Her sneakers squeaking on the hard floor, she strayed towards a piece of furniture leaning on the wall, and glanced about.  
  
"Did Grandpa say he was going out?"  
  
The ringing escalated to a faint shrill gong, as if announcing a doom directly from the heavens.  
  
"Why would you want to know? It won't matter if he goes out or stays in, for the end will come."  
  
"Not this century," the girl scoffed. "Grandpa says that meteor's going to miss Earth by a few thousand miles---"  
  
She stopped. The man's tainted eyes bore into her, halting her breath in her throat. They sparked no change, were still white, still aglow, but veiling a surfacing threat. For the first time, the robed man laughed, dainty and without much force, and yet he managed to maintain a severe tone.  
  
"This Earth is more resiliant than that, to be destroyed by a pebble. Girl, the end of this world will be brought by a flood."  
  
"My family's not religious. How do you expect me to believe a stupid thing like that?" she answered, asserting her role as temporary mistress of the house.Indeed, her brother hadn't shown up in her totally, but enough managed to ooze out from the cracks of her unassuming nature.  
  
Bad timing.  
  
The man quieted, turned around, stared towards the placid skies, and turned around again, an unearthly aura of pale white bathing him in its limitless opalescense, crowning him with shimmering authority. Without a change in his harmless expression, he outstretched his palm in front of her face.  
  
"Easy. You will be the first to fall when the end arrives, you who is so against its coming."  
  
He raised his hand level with the side of his face, an unseen energy pulling up the girl from the floor and suspending her in the midair. There he locked her in place. No amount of squirming would get her anywhere. Now she really was in a fix. She should've gotten out of there while she still could..but, too late for that.The angel of death was forming an energy blast directed straight at her. It engulfed the room with its intense glow, forcing her to shut her eyes and wait for it to be over...if she was alive after the blow had fallen.  
  
The death knell exploded into a sick elegy.  
  
"Let this be a reminder that the end will bring pain to your race FAR worse than this."  
  
May Oak screamed louder than she ever had in her life as the ray of raw energy rammed into her entire body..  
  
*~*~*  
  
"I'm just asking one damn thing, and one damn thing alone...." Cid stepped out of his quarters, his hair a mess, black bags under his eyes, and tying his bathrobe around his waist as he shivered and pulled his bedroom slippers on. He began stumbling forward, reaching for the hallway lightswitch. He finally found it in the dark and flicked it up, but nothing happened. His blue eyes narrowed as his scowl deepened, and he flipped the switch several more times before he finally let out a low "SHIT" and clenched his fists as he looked down the hall towards the bridge of the Highwind. His eyes slowly adjusted to the light as he tromped forward, muttering to himself in a cranky, half-coherent voice.  
  
"....and that one damn thing is that people respect my authority.'Let your poor crew take a night off,' she says. 'Get some rest; you look like you need some,' she says!" Cid halted and punched in the code to the bridge of his ship, stepping back as the steel doors opened with a loud "SWISH."  
  
"Well, lah-dee-fucking-lah, Tifa," Cid growled as he stepped up to the controls and stared at them. None of the lights that should have been blinking were even turned on, and any sounds that would have been normally coming from the loud engines of the aircraft were silenced by the complete absence of any other crewmembers or AVALANCHE members alike.  
  
"You've taught me never to trust another person with my job in my whole goddamn life...." Cid continued. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowed as he put his left hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face as he thought of the work it would take to get the ship back online. He could practically smell the sweat he would have to shed when he would climb down to the lower decks, and then the hours it would take to rewire the circuit board....  
  
"Good thing we weren't in the air, or we'd all be dead shits." Cid opened his eyes, which had been significantly dullened by his ominous thinking, and shivered as he remembered what had caused the rude interruption in his sleep in the first place.  
  
"The damn heater's busted too.... Damnit, why'd we have to be at one of the northern shores when Tifa screwed up, anyway!??" Cid closed his eyes in frustration as he rubbed his arms for warmth and began to walk towards the exit from the bridge. However, as he took one of the steps, he heard the sound of a crumpled paper crunching under one of his feet. He opened his right eye, blinking several times before he bent down, wincing at the stiffness in his spine as he did so, and picked up a piece of note paper. He uncrumpled it in his left hand as he stood back up and rubbed his aching back with his right.  
  
"Dear Cid," he read out loud in his gruff, low voice. "We followed the Shin- Ra helicopter over here from out of their detection. However, when we landed, we had no other choice but to land as well, and to shut down all of the main systems so that it would be difficult for them to detect us. It's about twelve; me, Barret, and Red went out to see if we could find out what those Turks are up to. We'll be back in an hour or so.... Seeing as you're the lightest sleeper, and the change in temperature will probably wake you up, make sure not to wake anyone else up with your yelling, all right? Thanks for understanding,: Tifa."  
  
Cid could only stare at the paper, dumbfounded that the girl had thought everything out so thoroughly. He brought a hand to his hair, scratching through the blonde strands with a hand as he continued to hold the paper in the other. Finally, after a minute of silence, he looked down at the watch on his wrist that Shera had given him for his thirty-third birthday.  
  
"Fuck," he muttered. "It's four in the morning." He finally dropped the paper, looking up at nothing in particular as he wondered about what was holding up homie-boy, dog-breath, and judo-fighting-karate-girl past their specified time of return.  
  
Cid looked down at the ground and sighed. He began walking towards his quarters, muttering to himself:  
  
"Better go look for the dumbshits.... Damnit, you really do have to do stuff yerself if you want it done right....."  
  
A golden eye shifted from side to side across the sparsely-vegetated ground, made visible only by the light that sifted through the grey dawn. Red sat on his scarlet haunches, shaking his wolfish head.  
  
"I think I lost their trail..."  
  
The two humans with him were alert as him in the dead of morning. After all, this was Shin-Ra that lay ahead of them. The danger that was thought to have been vanquished. After Diamond Weapon, Rufus was dusted. And after wasting the executives, there was no way that there could be a threat from that power-mad company ever again. How wrong they thought, since the Turks were there. And if Tseng had somehow come alive again, there was no guarantee that the rest were lifeless corpses. Midgar's border was in sight, when Red stopped. He scented the air with his black nose, tail straightening in anticipation.  
  
"They've left Midgar."  
  
"'Jes dandy, Red. We ain't 'gonna find 'em 'gain if we's goin' in circles!!" growled Barret, the irritation in his voice evident as he slammed his gun-arm on a nearby rock. Red eyed him warily: even Bugehagen used to be cranky at the crack of dawn. A human thing, maybe. Tifa took some initiative and started away from Midgar, her brown tresses blowing slightly in a weak wind.  
  
"If he's right, we can catch up to them if we hurry."  
  
"Shit, my legs..." Barret groaned. He was a tough man, but when it came to running, he wasn't very keen on that idea. Tifa shot him a knowing look and emphasized,  
  
"IF we hurry."  
  
The three AVALANCHE members soon found themselves traversing the barren, machine-ridden territory surrounding Midgar, crossing the elevated rock formations with increasing difficulty as they dipped and rose. Barret's cursing became more frequent as the uneven ground seemed to be endlessly on the incline: Shin-Ra's sixty-odd stories still managed to haunt him. The day was well into morning when they reached the end of the Turk's trail. It halted without any sign of diverging at a pale glow of light, rivalling the sun's rays as it faded and re-emerged continuously, flashing in the eyes of the AVALANCHE members.  
  
"That's it. The ninja girl and I saw them walk right into it."  
  
Both Tifa and Barret gave Red an incredulous look.  
  
"You're sure?"  
  
"Th' hell?!"  
  
The wolf/lion-like creature nodded, focusing on the constantly paling and brightening light. Tifa blinked several times to ascertain she wasn't dreaming, and walked closer to it. Her tread became slower, the light becoming brighter the shorter the distance. Barret and Red followed, shielding their eyes as they closed the gap between themselves and the unknown. Red gave a nod of affirmation, his cerulean feathers bobbing as his head moved. Everyone in agreement, Tifa clapped both her fists over her eyes, the light becoming unbearably bright, and took a step into the light.  
  
But before she could go anywhere, she heard a yell of anger behind her.  
  
"WHERE D'YA THINK YER GOIN', YA COCKY, SHIP-WRECKIN' BITCH?!??!"  
  
Before she could even react to the yell, she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder which roughly yanked her out of the portal and shoved her to the ground. Before she knew it, she was lying on her back, staring up at a familiar figure, who was, at the moment, silhouetted against the conflicting light and shadow of the dawn.  
  
Cid pointed a gloved finger accussingly at Tifa, his blue eyes narrowed and his lips in the shape of a scowl around the smoking cigarette that he held clenched between his teeth.  
  
"You'd better have a good explanation for yourself, kid!"  
  
Tifa blinked in surprise. Cid was no gentleman, but he usually didn't go so far as to mishandle a woman. Then again, she didn't know the man's private life. Who was she to judge? Grunting, she propped herself up on one elbow, and from there getting to her feet. She brushed the dust off her shirt with her worn gloves, straightening as she looked at Cid.  
  
"We were following the Turks," she said flatly. "They went into that," she continued, pointing at the white light with a good deal of irritation. "Barret and Red XIII went after them," she stated, jabbing a thumb at the said light.  
  
Cid continued to scowl as he looked incredulously at a the patch of trees in the otherwise barren landscape of the outskirts of Midgar. He grinned and laughed a bit harshly as he looked back at Tifa and crossed his arms.  
  
"Went into what? I don't see anythin'."  
  
Tifa was about to protest, and turned around, only to find the portal gone. Her face contorted in vexation.  
  
"But..it WAS there," she insisted, her dark brown hair drifting across her shoulder as she turned to gaze at.....nothing. "Barret and Red are gone. It HAS to be there."  
  
Cid blinked at her a moment, still disbelieving, but the fake smile dissappearing from his face. "You sure you okay, La-tifa? Y'know, they made all of us in the Shin-Ra airforce take a cat scan...." Tifa nodded with firm conviction. "I KNOW what I saw, Cid. It was right....." She took a step foward, reaching her gloved hand to the place that had been bathed in white light, now empty space. "Here."  
  
"There?" Cid looked a bit more serious as he followed Tifa and squinted his eyes towards the location of the so-called portal. After a few moments of bending down and inspecting the area, he stood up and looked at Tifa. "So, you're saying that Barret and Red and the Turks are off in some alternate dimension or somethin'?"  
  
"Yes. I was going to follow them....." she trailed off. No words were needed for that. Her sore back attested to it. She rubbed it gently, brushing aside the ache. The AVALANCHE member turned to the older man, switching the topic. "I'm sorry about your ship, Cid. We didn't have any choice."  
  
"CHOICE?!?!?" Cid immediately forgot about the situation at hand as he was reminded about the state of his beloved airship. "You know how long it's gonna take me to fix my baby, huh!??! Ya didn't just turn off the system; ya screwed over the entire MAINFRAME!!!! The whole damn thing's disabled!!!" He paused briefly to snuff out the stump of his cigarette between his gloved fingers, throw it to the ground, and grab a new one. "Hell, Tifa...." He pulled out a lighter with the Shin-Ra Air Corps insignia on it and set fire to his cig. "I feel like ya injured my fucking child or somethin'."  
  
Tifa REALLY felt like being derisive to the pilot. The last thing she wanted to have happen was to become a second Shera. But she figured that it was best to let the guy rant. He would lose his voice sooner or later with that cigarette stuck in his mouth 24/7. Her eyes strayed to the flattened cigarette. AVALANCHE had initially formed to save the planet from Shin-Ra. Semi-wistfully, she wondered if she would have to save the planet from Cid's cigarettes.  
  
Cid noticed the look that Tifa was giving to the remains of his tobacco and glared at her straight in the face. "Watcha lookin' at?" He answered his own question as he brought the second cigarette to his mouth and put his lighter back in one of his jacket pockets. "Hey, we're all gonna die anyway. Might as well make it a slow, painful, cancerous death, eh?"  
  
"YOU do just that, but don't drag me into it with your second-hand smoke," she said in a mix of jest and gravity, emphasizing the point with a cough. Then she added, her voice completely void of mirth, "I just hope it's not too soon..." Cid chuckled under his breath, a strange smile coming over his face. He closed his eyes as he took a smoke of his cigarette and pointedly turned around in the direction opposite Tifa as he blew the foul smoke out of his mouth. The strange smile remained on his face as he turned back towards Tifa, the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand as he opened his eyes, leaned forward, and patted Tifa on the shoulder.  
  
"Don't worry," he said, a small bit of bitter laughter underneath his voice. "I'll probably outlive you yet, kid."  
  
He then moved away, turning towards the area where the portal had supposedly appeared. He took another puff of his tobacco roll and furrowed his brow. "So, what do we do 'bout the shit that Barret and Red got themselves into?" Tifa shot Cid her iciest glare. "If you didn't pull me out, I'd KNOW what to do." It quickly dispersed, never being the one to easily be engaged in a verbal battle. She leaned over, trying to catch a glimpse of the white light, but finding nothing but the invisible wind that coursed through the few clusters of leaves.  
  
Cid crossed his arms once more, tapping one of his boots on the ground as he thought about the predicament. After a minute or so of silence, only broken by the sound of him blowing smoke out of his mouth, he said: "Well, what'd they do to open the damn thing in the first place?"  
  
"Nothing. It was...just there," she answered plainly, pointing at the empty space, now occupied by Cid's smoke-clogged breath. She waved her hand in front of her face, the opressive stench inflaming her nostrils. A cough coincided with her next words. "No one set it off or anything.."  
  
Cid glared at the young woman in frustration and then walked towards the trees themselves, inspecting them. "Seems kinda weird that there'd be a patch of vegetation in the middle of all this crap, huh?"  
  
Tifa stood stationary, nodding her head while gazing at the sky. "Yeah..." The AVALANCHE member didn't need to say what had left an indelible scar on the planet. Meteor was still a vivid picture in her, no, everyone's minds. "Maybe it's because of Holy," she speculated, still gazing at the sky. There was no foreboding fireball there now, but nonetheless, the black sky was dead. The weapon had been destroyed, but left its irreversible impact on the face of the already-dying planet. Cid arched an eyebrow and knocked one of his gloved knuckles against a tree. He paused a moment, then rapped it again, harder. He turned back towards Tifa.  
  
"Seems kinda weird that Holy would want to make hollow trees, then..." She blinked. "Hollow?" she asked, coming back down to the ground and followed Cid, inspecting the tree. She jabbed a fist at it to confirm, and stared in awe. "You're right..." She stepped away from the tree, assuming a thinking position. "What should we do?" Cid shrugged, picking up his Venus Gospel and twirling the large spear around in his hands and over his head with surprising ease. "We break the damn thing open, I s'pose." Tifa nodded, approaching the hollow tree. Leaning into a fighter's stance, shifting her weight to her back leg, she drove her fist, that was armored with a gleaming greyish metal, into the tree trunk. After her attack, Cid also charged, thrusting his spear into the trunk of the tree and then slashing it to the side. Under the stress of being attacked, the so-called tree seemed to break in half, revealing bunches of wires and various lights that blinked on and off from inside the contraption.  
  
"Well, that explains it," Cid grumbled as he narrowed his eyes and lowered his weapon. "Another damn Shin-Ra trick... They must've been trying to disguise the portal-projection thing. And....." His eyes widened momentarily and he slapped his right hand to his forehead as he realized what he and Tifa had done. "FUCK! We broke it!!!"  
  
Tifa's chocolate eyes bulged in realization, and she looked down at first, but her eyes brightened as she gave a knowing glance at Cid.  
  
"You could fix it, couldn't you?" "Well... uh.... yeah... I suppose could......" Cid scratched his head, a dubious look on his face. "But HELL!!! I don't know how it works! For all I know, I could screw the damn thing up, and then we'd be in deep shit, not to mention Barret and Red!" "Then...what do we do?" she asked, vexation darkening the mood on her face. She stared at the now-exposed contraption, afraid to touch it again lest she shatter it. Cid shrugged and put down his spear as he knelt down to the broken machine and began to move the bunches of wires with his gloves. "I try to fix the damn thing. What else?" Tifa nodded, and plopped down on the ground, sitting up on her elbows. She idilly watched Cid work, running her eyes over the plethora of wires that protruded from the contraption like a mass of tentacles.  
  
This could take a while...  
  
*~*~*  
  
Flocks of chirping Pidgey flew over the beaches, but none seemed to fly over the forest that Butch and Cassidy were currently in. It was as if there was an intangible aura that kept the normal wildlife away from this place. Indeed, it looked normal enough: with the usual foliage native to islands in the Orange Archipelago, which rendered the forest canopy pleasing to the eye. Yes, the forest itself boasted no threat, but the building that the two Rockets stood before was a different story.  
  
From roof to foundation it radiated a bleak feeling of despair. Not that it LOOKED like a decrepit haunted mansion, or an imposing tower where grim destruction breeded, but Butch had a crawling feeling that he or Cassidy would like what they found in there.  
  
He turned to his blonde partner. If she was creeped out, it didn't seem like it. Cool and controlled as always. But that was superficial. Underneath she was just as apprehensive as he was.  
  
Butch approached the door. It looked harmless enough. With a shaky hand he was trying to steady, he turned the knob.  
  
There was a sudden creaking as the door slowly swung inwards, and while Butch gave a startled yelp and jumped backwards, Cassidy also reeled, her eyes widening as the entrance revealed the dark, foreboding interior of the lab.  
  
After a minute or so of silence, she finally caught herself. She gave a grunt and grabbed a half-terrified Butch by the wrist and began to drag him forward.  
  
"It's a stupid door, you lunkhead," she muttered to her partner as she trudged into the ominous bu ilding. She paused and glanced around at the empty counters and the polished floors. As she spoke, she could hear her own dull echo bouncing off of the white walls. "And from the looks of it, no one has been here in a while." Butch nodded as he took a quick glance around the empty room. It was...too empty. He shuddered slightly. Usually someplace this deserted invited a lurking danger, and he couldn't help but think that the place was too quiet to be unoccupied. He turned to his partner, about to give his two cents, but then changed his mind. It was probably his imagination.  
  
"What ahe we looking foh, Cass?" he inquired suddenly, that brief moment of anxiety causing him to forget their priorities. "Oh, yeah....." the Rocket said, looking more than a little abashed. He hadn't gotten used to Cassidy's spurts of irritation yet. Both were usually on the same level of intellect for the most part. But for some reason, Butch hadn't been feeling on par lately, and just being inside this empty lab was making it worse. Of course, he didn't tell his partner that.  
  
"C'mon," she growled, her eyes narrowing as she walked forward, farther into what could be the pits of hell. "We're goin' in."  
  
*~*~*  
  
There was no pain, no ache, no feeling at all. Just a strange numbness, as if all of his senses had been parlyzed and been ordered to ignore his every whim. The only real thing he had any awareness of were voices... voices, everywhere, speaking in hushed, almost incoherent tones, and then escalating into screams, then slowly being quieted into whispers again. A few words made their way into his mind, a select few which, instead of bringing answers, only brought more questions--more  
  
torment--to his lost and confused mind.  
  
........dreams, you know? Dreams are like this....  
  
......you think this is a dream, Flint?....  
  
....I dunno, I think she might be one, though.....  
  
.....GET AWAY......  
  
........not going to hurt you.....  
  
......who are you?.....  
  
.....I.... I don't know.....  
  
....After them! And the boy, find that----thing, we NEED him, or this research will be wasted, you hear me??! It'll be DONE for!!!!  
  
....damnit, they found the subject first....  
  
....wait.... the hospital?  
  
..YES... do you know..... do you KNOW what this blood sample MEANS?!?!....  
  
......Dude, we're going after her....and my son....  
  
....You're crazy! You'll be killed!!!... and....  
  
....Yes, Flint... killed.... you'll be deader than dead, more murdered than can be killed.... kill... kill....  
  
....is it WORTH it to get back that th.----  
  
.....it's my son.... not a thing..... bring the camera.....  
  
....here it is.....  
  
....INTRUDER ALERT.... INTRUDER ALERT......  
  
.....FLINT!!!!.......  
  
.....I'm not leaving you, Maya, I swear I won't----AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!........  
  
.......sir, the specimen... it's lacking.....  
  
.......whispers.....whispers......whispers......  
  
.....I see........then, Demoni must have the same problem..... and we each have a very useful donator......  
  
.....for my son? I'll do it........  
  
......good.......  
  
......this is the only way to succeed......  
  
.......will I be me?.....  
  
......the bigger question is.... will he be you...?  
  
......Flint....  
  
......Light.........  
  
............................................................................ .  
  
......................Who............am....................I.........?  
  
............................................................................ ....  
  
........Your name is Gem---  
  
.........his......... name....... is....... Brock........  
  
.......Brock.....?  
  
.........Your name is Brock..........  
  
..........................  
  
Brock sat bolt upright with a choked gasp, his senses suddenly alive again as he stared straight in front of himself, his eyes wide in confusion and terror and his entire body lathered in sweat. NOW he felt pain; he could feel a dull, almost drugged ache at the back of his head, and he could almost feel the pain of a spike or two on his shoulders that had been chipped when he had fallen.  
  
Fallen? Oh, right. He slowly tried to stand up, but found that his legs were too weak, and he collapsed to the ground once more. He'd been shot by-- -something---or----other---when he had been attacking Giovanni for------ GIOVANNI!!!!!!!!!!!! Brock suddenly found himself snarling and growling, the primal sounds echoing in his gut as he threw himself at the walls of--- well, wherever he was. The vision in his red eyes was still blurred, and all he knew at this moment was revenge. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, YOU BASTARD!?!??!??!?!?  
  
The same hell as you are in. The mental voice answered, void of the imperious tone that usually characterized him. He seemed despondent, aware that the slighest movement would move the hooks, and increase the steady pump of fluids into his brain. He wasn't even growling anymore, repulsed by the liquid that flowed into his jaws. Resisting the urge to simply cease thinking of and fearing consequences and become again the beast he was taking its toll on him, and his crimson eyes dulled from rage to sulleness.  
  
Although Brock could "hear" the sad, strangely human voice, sensing its reverberation in his head, he continued to scratch at the walls, his sight still bleary.  
  
Where am I, then?!? Who are you working with?!?!? Don't try to bullshit me, you----WHAT?!?!?  
  
His eyesight had suddenly cleared, and he was dumbfounded at what he saw. Two points of blinding red light engulfed his vision, and he found himself skittering away on his clawed hands and feet, the image in front of him slowly becoming more distinct until its details became painfully obvious. The sight, though somewhat familiar to Brock by this point, still caused his throat to tighten and his jaw to clench.  
  
It's........ me............. He said to himself as he stared at his visage in the mirror in front of him. He looked.... cleaner, to say the least. It seemed as if someone had tidied him up; his scales shined slightly, his claws looked polished, and all of his wounds had been healed---somehow. But, wait....... There was an empty space on the top of his head where his hair should have been, and his remaining piece of tattered clothing--his pants--had since been removed.  
  
Brock's eyes narrowed at his reflection and he growled as he looked around; it seemed as if the walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of mirrors. Great. Not only do they humiliate me and make me a monster, but they leave me naked and shave my hair off. Oh, this is just terriffic....  
  
The reptile cocked his head at a slow pace, somehow avoiding the increased flow of chemicals at this slight movement. This angle enabled him to see the monster across from him. He couldn't believe it at first, and wondered if the fluid was diminishing his sight. But his eyes fully focused on the tortured shape of the other monster, he saw that his vision wasn't failing. There was Brock, without hair or pants, which erased any assumption that the creature had been a boy at any time in his life. Hair that didn't grow everywhere and clothes were unique to humans, and without these features, the other looked completely monstrous, with no hint of anything humanoid about him. To resemble a human, no matter how hideous the creature looked, retained a fraction of humanity. A tiny sliver, but it was still there. But with all features of humanity stripped away, Brock was simply yet another beast.  
  
He sees it fit to torture in effective ways. Came the mental voice from the motionless reptile. If you're not enlightened on the rest of your situation.....things cannot get much worse. A low growl emitted from his closed mouth. You are----- He made the mistake of jerking his head, and his thought pattern became disconnected and incoherent. --in---somewhere...He said about---two Gemini, and--caught one--are you caught---?  
  
Huh? Brock dejectedly looked upwards, at the seemingly ordinary mirrors. He grit his fangs. They were probably one-way mirrors, and strong ones at that. He went back to conversing with his arch-enemy. You aren't making any sense. Go over that again....  
  
I said.....He growled menacingly, frustrated that he couldn't find the...words to convey this. Two Geminis---one caught. He began to panic, and he shot his head sideways to gaze at the other's cell, in a pathetic attempt to focus, tightening the wires in the process. Brock blinked at nothing in particular, as Giovanni could see him but he couldn't see Giovanni. He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, staring at his hideous reflection with a cold, emotionless face. Give it up. I don't get you.  
  
It was at that moment that the sound of a door swinging open was heard.  
  
Giovanni upturned his massive head, the repulsive hooks pulling on his brain, shutting off his thoughts as he stared at the other monster in frustration, who was resigned to a worse fate. Then he looked at the opening door. What else could happen?  
  
A bent shadow cast itself over the sterile floor, and its owner shuffled through the doorway, hands clasped behind his back in his usual hunched position. His pallid visage lightened as he craned his neck upwards, pushing up his glasses to see his two specimens.  
  
"You must be enjoying the accomodations."  
  
A thin grin spread over his face at the "newcomer." "And you, Gemini," he added with a heigtening menace that did not show in his quiet voice, "I'm pleased to see you're making optimum use of my mirrors."  
  
He concluded with a satisfied smirk fit for such a sadistic and twisted mind, "I made them just for you."  
  
Brock could hear a voice, albeit muffled, through the walls, which soon became clearer when some kind of speaker was activated--one that seemed to be in his own head.  
  
Wh-what?!? He snarled at this new threat, pausing a moment when he heard his own thoughts projected on a speaker from outside of the walls, and then growling again, lunging at one of the mirrored walls, which he hoped to be nearest this.... person. Who the hell are you?!  
  
"I believe that a more appropriate question would be 'who are you?'" he sneered, peering into the mirror-filled cube. He was aware that he other couldn't see him, and this disadvantage would only worsen the reaction of the subject. The more worse, the better, all the more satisfying to his carnivirous intellect.  
  
Who... am I...?! Brock found himself hesitating for a moment, remembering the disturbing series of voices that he had been hearing just a few minutes before. However, he soon got ahold of himself, and began scratching at the walls, as if looking for some way to escape. I know who I am!!!! Brock Bravestone----uhm----seventeen years old----and--uhm---damnit, I DO know who I am, so don't try to pull any crap!!!! IVY did this to me, and--and--- so did.....HIM!!!! Brock pointed wildly around the cell, trying to find the location that Giovanni's thought speech had been coming from. And right now, I want to know what's going on!!!!  
  
"Oh, you mean Belina?" Hojo arched a curious eyebrow. "I applaud your partial correctness. She did complete the final procedures, but you're not aware of who began the experiment, are you?"  
  
He made his way around the cube in a slow circle, not waiting for an answer before speaking again,  
  
"Of course you're not. You were but a hatchling when I took you and your mother."  
  
He slid his glasses off, fogging the round lenses with putrid breath, and wiping them clean on his shirt. Giovanni widened his eyes: he could have sworn he saw a tint of an alien sort of virdian in those cold, dark orbs of menace.  
  
"Perhaps I am mistaken..one does forget these exact dates and times," he said to no one in particular. "I do know that your animal brain isn't developed enough to remember that far back. It was some time ago, I believe."  
  
I..... WHAT!??!? Brock snarled at his own reflection. Don't try to trick me, whoever you are.... I'm---I---- He choked slightly. ---I WAS the oldest of of... a bunch of kids.... and I know who my parents were---Flint and Piedra. I DON'T have a... an... "animal brain," so I.... I..... I know you're lying!  
  
"It seems that this subject will need convincing as well," the scientist muttered under his breath. "Me? Lying? Look at yourself, Gemini. You should know that your brain is underdeveloped just by looking at your refection. Is that the body of something posessing a human brain? Hm? You tell me, Gemini. You pretend to know who you are."  
  
I.... I..... Brock suddenly felt lightheaded, woozy, and he found himself rubbing his temple with a claw as he fell forward onto the mirror in front of him. He suddenly remembered that he hadn't eaten a thing for the last two days, and he took a huge breath of air before he looked into the mirror. He looked at the face which wasn't really his own and responded dully: As long.... as--as long as I can reason.... like between right and wrong... I'm still human, even if I look..... look like... this.... I don't CARE what you say..... You sound just like... like Gio... Gio... What's that bastard's name, again...? Gio... whatever; you sound just like him from before he got sunk, but I still won't believe anyone who says it... because... because it isn't true.  
  
"You're still human," he repeated slowly, shaking with supressed laughter. "You can't even remember your nemesis's NAME, let alone differentiate between right and wrong." He paused, to let the words sink, or more of, drill into the monster's receptive brain. "Right...was it RIGHT to come here, in search of revenge? That is because of your instincts. But with these instincts, you can't reason. You only are led by them, and you must follow them, because they are you."  
  
His name... doesn't... matter...... He.... killed.... them.... A tear came to one of Brock's tired eyes, even as he laid limp on the ground. For some reason.... the moisture he was shedding seemed to exhaust him completely. He should.... die.... too.... His eyes slowly glazed over, and his forked tongue lolled out of his mouth. I'm so..... so...... He licked his dry lips with his parched tongue and outstretched a hand towards the wall, where he vaguely guessed someone could see it from the outside. So... thirsty....  
  
"Not anymore, it doesn't....." Hojo cut himself off, developing a sudden interest with the misshapen hand. He strode towards it, bending gradually lower until his sight levelled with the clawed monstrosity. "Ah...those other instincts are finally making themselves known. Bloodlust, yes.....displaying a vampiric nature. Not cannibalistic. That implies that you'd take the blood of a fellow HUMAN...Vampiric, beause of separate species, one human and one percievably far from it. Of course..." he summed up. "You are the parasite in this symbiosis. Yes, very much like that creature of nonsensical rubbish...." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "What is it? Ah, yes...a vampire."  
  
V-vampire....? Brock looked up blearily, his eyes narrowed until they snapped open, strangely blank in their stare. BLOOD.... Brock's nose began to move as he sniffed out... something or other, his head turning wildly as he staggered to his feet and stumbled around the interior of the cube. Whether his sudden delirium was induced by the implant in his skull , the chemicals in his bloodstream, or even his own mind was unknown, but one thing was for certain: The human part of him, for the time being, was no longer in control.  
  
Only one phrase could be heard through the speakers that projected his frenzied thoughts, one phrase which rang eerily in the large laboratory.  
  
Where is it....? Where is it....? WHERE IS IT....?  
  
Zero-X, silent until now, growled as he shifted his head again, loosening the tight grip of the hooks. It was then he realized, the frenzied desire in the other monster's eyes, that he wanted blood. He snarled, almost pleadingly.  
  
Control yourself.....that is how he wants you to act....as an animal.....  
  
"Exactly as I thought. It's instincts are showing plainly, now. If I don't satisfy them, it may lose total control over those lingering human tendencies. What tragedy....." he laughed to himself, gleaming eyes narrowing in delight.  
  
"Yes...a tragedy....." the scientist muttered, the alien color of his eyes piercing the specimen's cube, in the way so many Rune blades would gore a dragon's heart. He began to walk the length of the cube, turning sharply, and walking in the opposite direction, his fingers holding his chin in deep contemplation, and a resentful grimace signalled that he had changed his mind. "But...it occurs to me that you are thirsty...it wouldn't do for you to die of starvation. No, not at all."  
  
S-starve.... Blood... Need.... blood...? Brock suddenly got ahold of himself and fell to his knees, whimpering as he held his claws to his face. Wh-what the hell's wrong with me??!  
  
"Nothing is wrong with you, Gemini," he answered in sadistic glee, every feature of his face depicting malicious evil. "No....."wrong" would be if you were craving for human food." He paused to quirk an eyebrow. "Curious...you still imply with your speech that you''re human. Even the most simplistic being would know that the only humans that are cannibals crave human tissue." He flashed a twisted smile. "But I did mention that before, didn't I? " He waved his hand dismissvely. "Not that it matters. In any scenario, you will have your.....blood. "  
  
No... I'd rather take McDonald's, damnit....... He snarled at his own reflection with self-loathing. I'D RATHER EAT MCDONALD'S, YOU HEAR ME?!? He gave out a roar and tackled the image of himself, crashing into the wall and falling to the ground inside the shell once more. He rolled over and shrank back against the opposite side of the cube, sitting there for a moment, breathing harshly and feeling a rivulet of blood stream down from his forehead to his cheek.  
  
"How amusing...despite your mental degradation, you can still name the site where bio-hazardous materials are heavily concentrated." He stroked his chin thoughtfully before assuming a more terse demeanor. "That won't satisfy your hunger, I'm afraid. Your body craves for blood, and blood alone. It was inevitable, because you were born with that instinct."  
  
No I DON'T, you freak!!!!! Brock grit his fangs. Just throw a Big Mac in here or something---I'll eat it,---you'll see!!! He rubbed the black liquid off the side of his face with the back of his hand. Hah! Mental degradation! You're the one who's.... who's.... He blinked his pupiless eyes as they slowly wandered down towards the hand. He stared at the blood on it with a strange fascination. It's..... it's cold......  
  
"Indeed," he snickered in delight, completely ignoring the other's name- calling. It was inconsequential, after all. "The same property as your 'friend's', I might add," he stated, a delighted smile creasing his face as Zero-X squirmed. He shuffled towards the computer panel, chin between his thumb and forefinger as he looked downwards, concentrated on something or other. He didn't turn around as he said, "As for that excuse for a victual..." He typed a command on the panel, a minute elapsing before the food appeared in a container at the rear of the lab. He turned a knob and fiddled with a dial, the Big Mac teleported, and vanished from the container, reappearing inside the cube.  
  
"Impressive, these Silph teleporters. Eliminates the need for elevators."  
  
Suddenly, as if on a whim, he typed in several more commands, the mirrors generating a mechanical whir as they retracted. Ah, but this was Hojo. Spontanaiety was the farthest from his mind as he watched his specimen's reaction to the meal.  
  
Brock's misshapen hand lashed out at the vile combination of bread, beef, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and cheese. He brought it to his mouth in a quavering arc, and chomped down on the burger. His hands flew to his throat. A distorted gag followed by a horrified snarl ignited a satiated smirk from he, who was such a small and unimposing entity, the falsity of which was painfully obvious. The half- chewed glop spewed from Brock's mouth, landing on the base of the cube. He fell to his knees, an enraged voice ripping through the speakers.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP?!?!"  
  
Hojo let out a chuckle so sinister it would shame Sisyphus.  
  
"The palplable proof of your inhumanity...no..your idiocy in REFUSING to accept your current...condition," he answered unconcernedly. He depressed a second button, and the burger separated itself into millions of particles before vanishing from the cube. Raising a hand to adjust his glasses, he strode away from the panel again, the lab lights playing on his lenses, making them appear a stark white. "Other than that, it serves as a sufficient poison for humans."  
  
Low-down bastard!!! There's NO WAY that meat wasn't months old!  
  
God, he felt SICK. Brock doubled over, gripping his stomach so hard black rivulets seeped thorugh his scaled hide and rolled down in jagged streams. Now crawling, CRAWLING over the surface of that goddamned cube, he fought the overwhelming urge to vomit all of his organs that were completely, totally rejecting this substance. He pressed his pained face against the glass, glaring at the slowly retreating form of the scientist. More of disgust than anything. He would've thought someone so expert at torturing the shit out of innocents would be adept at persuasion----so what if he didn't have his clothes OR his hair? It didn't make him any less human. And he WAS human, damnit!  
  
Nice try, whoever the hell you are, but I saw through your plan.....feeding me rotten food so I'd THINK I was some sort of monster!  
  
The bald, naked, blood-covered, imprisoned creature began to laugh: bitterly, coldly, but with a tinge of cocky mirth.  
  
A nervous growl from Zero-X signalled that something was awry. Hojo was once again punching buttons on the panel, a crane-like instrument responding to his command. From what the numbed receptors in his brain could discern was that the crane was connected to the ceiling directly above the cube.  
  
I'm STILL human! Give me some REAL food and I'll prove it!  
  
Brock rubbed off the involuntary drool that was dripping from his fanged mouth with the scaly back of his hand. Hit by the reminder that physically, he was a freak, he tore his hand away and growled outraged.  
  
I WANT a damn BIGMAC!!!  
  
His blazing eyes burned with intense fervor.  
  
I'll show you I'm human!!  
  
He banged on the wall of the cube with his clawed fists with violent excitement, trying to get that labcoated asshead to TURN around. In the back of his humanoid mind, that was the sole thing bothering him....normally he would've said something by now. But he was at the panel, pushing away, lost in a world of technical processes that would inevitably have some sort of end result..  
  
Jesus, why'd he have to be right?  
  
Hojo revealed his twisted mug as he turned around, hands returning to their clasped position behind his back, shuffling across the sterile floor towards the cube. Halfway he glimpsed his writhing figure, dragging itself to the..BODY that Hojo had dumped into the cube.  
  
Not any body...not another cadaver whose only identification was a tag; remove the tag and you have nothing.  
  
Hojo turned back to the panel..that DAMNED panel. While the realization sank painfully in Brock's brain, and every organ sank with it, the madman depressed a different set of buttons, distracted, detatched from his specimen's plight in thought or action. Ignoring the feral sobs of a mere BOY like he was a dead leaf fallen onto the sidewalk.  
  
Brock didn't want to hold her. She would be poisoned by his demonic touch, because of who..what...he was... He would profane a sacred temple with hands of Hell.... His eyes burned with tears. This wasn't...supposed to be happening.....that wasn't...that couldn't be..she couldn't be.....dead? With a pained roar he leapt to the cube, that single wall that was the only thing keeping him from tearing the throat out of his tormentor.  
  
You KILLED her!!!!!!  
  
He threw himself against the wall, slamming head-on until his skull rattled and blood flowed into eyes, but rage blided him more than the black blood. He was on the verge of passing out when Zero-X gave a warning roar, but the words, even amplified by the speaker, were lost to him, as Hojo tapped a final button, the mechanized din of a moving contraption drowning it. It subsided, and Hojo snatched the opportunty of the silence and answered Brock. Apparently, he had been listening all along.  
  
"No, Gemini...don't presume to make quick assumptions..it will get you nowhere. You see---" The device, that projected from the base of the cube, steadily rose, closing off sight of one whole side. Brock flew to it, clutching his hands in anger: this wall was a thick metal. He felt himself drop, catching the glass with his throbbing head. Through tormented eyes he read the sadistic lips as the metal swallowed the walls of the cube, plunging him into the unsympathetic void of silence.  
  
"---one cannot stand between a potential vulpine specimen and a loaded firearm and expect to reach their full life expectancy."  
  
Hojo smiled amusedly at Zero-X's expected stupidity.  
  
"Gemini can no longer hear me...or anything else, for that matter," Hojo mused to himself. "It's only a matter of time before he won't be able to resist. The instincts are far too potent..." He shuffled towards the lab light, chuckling to himself. "And when he discovers he has prolonged his own life by draining this girl...Suzy of Scissor Street, wasn't it?" He shut them off, submerging the silent lab in all darkness except the eerie glow of the liquid in the tube. "Ah.....but how little the name means..." He regained his track of mind with little effort. "Ah...where was I? There won't be any reason for him to offer resistance." As he slowly pushed open the door, he smiled at the muffled roars of anguish radiating from the metallic- covered cube, the hopeless struggle of mind over body.....he loved every moment of it. The mere thought of it sent chills of delight up his curved spine.  
  
Curved...he noticed recently that he'd been stooping lower and lower. People of average height seemed to tower over him. Ah....it must be his age. Still..he couldn't help pondering what had happened between that day and returning to work....But it was easily dismissed. There were other matters elsewhere that needed to be attended to. It annoyed him that this business would take him away from his specimens, but he supposed he would have to take it like any other interruption in his work.  
  
Besides, it wasn't entirely an interruption. Ivy hadn't reported in to him since the second phase had started. Perhaps it was time to see what she was up to.  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: There you go. Chapter 14 coming soon. Hope you enjoyed it! If you didn't..well...oops. ^^; I hope this is worthy of Erin's greatness. ^^ 


	14. Down the Rabbit Hole

**End of a Reality**

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

**[ Ed.: **(Only up to the middle of Chapter 13 and the beginning of Chapter 14; Now, the credits have changed to...)

by Blue9Tiger and edited by DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana

(Blargness. XD;;;)**]**

*~*~*****

**Editor's Longass Note (DMB): **.....HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT.

That's all I have to say.

Blue, you did a fantabulous job. :D Here's a cookie. XD

Especially with teh Brockness... Aw, that first bit with him in this chapter almost made me cry. ;~;

Okay, notes...? Notes, notes.... Well, everyone who has been following this fic and reviewing (THX 2 ALL OFF U I LUV U ALLL OMG)... um, right, anyway, you guys probably all hate me for burdening Blue with the task of finishing the epic quest of writing this fic all by her lonesome.

Not to say that you don't have a good reason to, but....

Well, the reason why I left the writing process is because I was getting behind on my homework... well, no, fine, the real reason is because I've seriously lost interest in Pokémon, and I found that when we RPed, I only wanted to skip to the FFVII bits....

Anyway, this whole fic began to feel like obligatory work instead of fun, so after a big fight with Blue and a long talk afterwards, we agreed that Blue could do the major writing bits, and I could come in afterwards and edit/proofread/format/HTMLize stuff. ^^ Plus, I get to inject my writing style in some parts and modify/lengthen/shorten stuff, me being the evil person that I am. D That's fun too... I HAV TEH POWWWEEERRRR, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.

So, bottom line, the rest of this entire fic is mostly the property of Blue9Tiger, save for the meager skeleton of a plot, and some minor adjustments by yours truly.

There, you can still hate me if you want. ;~; (Blue says I'm too hard on myself, but I really don't think so. O_o I swear, Blue, YOO HAV TEH INZAAAYYN STAMEENAH TO FINISH ALL OF ZEES SHEEEEET.)

Oh, right, I wasn't able to proofread this as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I promised Blue that I wouldn't stall on it and that I would upload it tonight, so here it is. ^_^ I'll probably come back later and adjust some small bits.... But anyway, enjoy!!!!! ^______^

*~*~*

Static fades to fuzzy picture. Five Rockets are standing in front of a video-phone. A Pokémon is flying around the room.  
Picture is too blurry to identify any of the individuals..

Rocket 1:This is squad leader 27 reporting to central HQ. Heist was a success, we hid the goods under the  
Pokémon Center. Awaiting further------

Pokémon: Zuuuuu!!!

Gunshots, yelling.

Rocket 2: Shit-----It's the cops...

Rocket 1: ...Attack!

Gunshots, Glass breaking, yelling, dogs barking. Four dogs and eight SOLDIERs come on-screen. They are armed with machine guns.

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 1: Stay where you are, all of you!

Rocket 3: Zubat, Supersonic!

More gunshots, Rocket is hit, high-pitched noise from flying Pokémon, screaming, dogs barking. Flying Pokémon can now be  
identified as a Zubat..

Rocket 1: Jesus Christ-----

Dogs charge leader. Static, picture comes back, Rocket 1 is dead...

Rocket 4: Zubat-----

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 1: Surround them!

SOLDIERs, 3rd class, form a ring around Rockets. Gunshots, Rocket 2, 3, 4, and 5 are hit, Zubat is hit, high-pitched noise stops..

Rocket 6: Damnit...

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3: Stop!

Rocket 6 runs to video-phone.

Rocket 6: Squad 27 to HQ----need assistance----

Dogs move in from two sides of the room...

Rocket 6: C'mon, someone pick up!!!

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3 cocks machine gun.

Rocket 6: For the love of Christ, PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE!!

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3 fires, static, tape turns off...

--SOLDIER raid of a Rocket agent's basement recorded with video camera on the corner of Azumao St. and Marumine Ave. in Vermillion City a day after the Pewter and Viridian City incident. Witness unidentified. No prints were found on video camera. No Shin-Ra investigation followed. Investigation conducted by Vermillion City Police Department. 

*~*~*

**Chapter 14:** Down the Rabbit Hole

*~*~*

A smug smile adorned Cid's dirtied face as he stood up straight, crossing his arms over each other with a screwdriver in one of his gloved hands. 

He turned towards Tifa, grinning. "Told ya it wasn't a match for me."

Her slumber, made light with years of necessity for alertness, ended quickly with Cid's gruff voice. With a yawn and short stretch, she was up and leaned over to stare at the pilot's handiwork. 

"It sure wasn't." A pain as the no-mannered pilot was, in cases like these he was indispensable. She blinked several times and then leaned back. "I guess it should work now...." 

Cid's grin suddenly turned into a scowl. "What? No 'thank yous'?" He turned around towards the piece of machinery again, grumbling something about his ship before he cleared his throat and put his thumb on a switch that was so carefully hidden behind one of the "tree's" branches. "Well, yeah, I should hope it'd work... And..." He flipped the switch upwards and grinned once more as a faint, crackling energy began to flit into sight between the tree and the one spaced a few feet away from it. "Voila!"

He backed away from it, putting the screwdriver away in one of his jacket pockets, pausing as the light from the so-called "portal" began to flicker, staring at it rather dubiously as he scratched at the back of his neck. Gradually, the feeble light revealed its true state as it shrank and swelled like the yawning jaws of a some threatening creature, causing Cid to say the fateful words:

"Now what?"

"We're going in," Tifa turned towards Cid and nodded decisively. "Barret and Red can't be too far...." They were now back to square one, except that Cid wasn't going to knock her down this time. The very aura of the portal radiated a whispered warning for them to stay back, but unheeding, she ran towards the glowing gap in the immediate air before them.

And then.....

"What're you DOIN', Tifa?!" Cid pulled her back like he had before, glowering over her. "We don't have a clue what could be on the other side of that thing, damnit!!!" He took a drag on his cigarette, and then widened his eyes as the faint light of the damaged portal began to flicker and die. 

"What the....?" He turned towards a smug Tifa and then back towards the ominous light, grating his teeth against each other as he spit his cigarette out of his mouth. "Well... I guess we _can_ just go through the damn thing..."

It flickered again, becoming fainter with each pulse of energy.

Cid narrowed his eyes. 

"Oh, hell with it...."

He picked up his spear, and stormed bravely into the light. 

The pilot vanished almost immediately, thickly veiled by the foreboding crackle of divergent energy flickering across the white hole. Determination flashing in her brown eyes, Tifa followed, bound for ithe unknown...

.....And smacked face-first into an invisible wall of energy that sent her flying to the ground.

Stunned, she lay on her back, blinking for a few moments before she dragged herself into a sitting position and was able to stare as the portal jerked outwards, then inwards, fluxuating dangerously for a second before it vanished into thin air. She wasn't a stupid girl; it didn't take her long to realize that there was no getting to wherever Barret, Red XIII, and now a hesitant Cid had been swept off to. With an exasperated sigh, she groped for her PHS that lay in her shorts pocket and pulled it out, staring down dully as she punched in the numbers "999", possibly one of the easiest-to-remember emergency lines on the planet. Whipping the device up to her mouth, she listened for an answer on the other end and shooting a bewildered glare at the sealed portal, she answered the vapid voice on the other side.

"Yeah, this is Tifa.... Yes, I _know_ a few crewmembers have 'mysteriously disappeared'.... Uh-huh.... Okay, well, that's great, but tell Cloud he's not gonna find anyone else but me..."

After a few more toneless words, Tifa growled into the receiver. "YES, I know you couldn't find a note! ......Yes, Cid got it...... No, he's not here. .....No, I _don't_ know where he is.... Why? Well, him and the other two missing members pretty much disappeared off the face of the-----YES, Vincent, we DO have a problem...."

*~*~*

"Butch? Why're you shivering?!? Only chickens shiver!"

Smack. 

Automatically Butch's hand slid up to his cheek and he rubbed it gingerly. If his pride was hurt as well as his face, he didn't show it. But... DAMN, she was acting...well, pretty bitchy recently.

He narrowed his eyes in exasperation. "Hey, it's cold up heah. I'm no chicken."

"UP 'heah'?!" Cassidy mimicked Butch's scratchy voice rather cruelly and accurately at the same time, whirling around on her heel and glaring murder at him as she put the backs of her wrists to her shapely hips. "We're down in a BASEMENT, Sherlock! And it's not cold at all! Just.... brisk!" She turned away, storming down the hallway. "And speaking of brisk, that's just the way we should be walking! So stop stumbling and muttering and be USEFUL for a change!!!!" 

For all his weak attempts at asserting virile authority, Butch ascquiesced and quickened his pace, the basement draft making him shiver all the more. Only Cassidy's caustic remark and the fact that they had a job to do kept his mind off the cold long enough to keep up with his sharp-tongued partner. Even sharper than usual, in fact, with the sudden chaos. It didn't bother him, really, though she had never pulled a Jessie on him, before. Why was she yelling at him, anyway? Why'd she suddenly find him the bane of the team? 

"So....." Cassidy growled out the side of her mouth, oblivious to Butch's pondering. "Where do you suppose we should start looking?" 

Butch's hands wandered into his pockets and he thought. Thinking was the thing that kept him on the Rocket payroll. Better put it to use.

"Whehe it's least obvious. This chick's smaht, so thehe's prob'ly a code or a switch... _that'd_ keep anybody from taking it," he answered, scanning the narrow corridor for anything out of place. 

"Well, then, if she's so smart, wouldn't she expect us to look in the most unexpected place?" Cassidy turned and walked towards a large, ajar door down the hall. "Therefore, wouldn't she want to put everything in the most obvious place, where we probably wouldn't look?"

Butch cocked a teal eyebrow and replied amdist a reddening complexion, 

"Yeah." Man, why didn't he think of that before? He'd swear, Cassidy was the living proof that blondes weren't dumb.... or maybe she was nervous and was just trying to contradict whatever he said...? She did that sometimes... Oh, hell, he didn't know...

Cassidy lifted her chin haughtily, slamming the door open, blocking Butch's view of the contents of the next room with it as she marched inside, her hands on her hips.

"I swear, you're never any help! It's so aggravating that---"

There was a long pause. A very, very long pause as Butch watched Cassidy slowly back out of the doorway, her pupils pinpricks in her widened eyes.

"Hey, Cass, what's the matt--" Butch's eyes were soon in the same state as his partners as he neared her and looked up into the room ahead.

Cassidy's next words reflected what they were both feeling.

"Oh my....... OH MY GOD."

They stiffened to statues as they met with a horror that would make the things they did to Pokémon look like tender love and care. Everywhere in the room there stood rows of cages, stacked on top of each other, all occupied by mutilated bodies, their tormented forms dangling lifelessly out between the bars..... a lucky few were recognizable as Pokémon, or at least, what used to be, and the others...?

Cassidy stared in utter shock, frozen to the bone as goosebumps rose on her pale, cold skin. The gruesome spectacle was indescribable--like some lurid nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

And suddenly....

She realized....

They looked almost....

"B-Butch," Cassidy stammered, struggling to keep her shaking legs planted on the floor. "Is it just me or do they look.... kind of...... hu..... man.....? 

"Human?" Butch forced a halfhearted laugh as he answered his partner with a bit more control than she had at the moment. "_That's_ a joke. These things ahe definitely Pokémon.... Kinda human-_lookin'_, but... nah, they could nevuh be..... "

His blood ran cold as realization struck him hard.

The boss...

Not him, nor Cassidy, or the wimp, nor that dominatrix recognized him at first. Yet, he was human. No reason these poor shits couldn't be, too.

He felt cold...Not colder than the stiffs were, but close enough. With marked hesitation in his usual sangfroid, the Rocket approached the unsettling cages, peering past the bars at the repulsive corpses, mangled beyond description. Fear crawled over his face and left a chilled mark upon it, starkly contrasting with his words delivered with aplomb and composure.

"They've been dead awhile." He indicated the slanted tally marks that some of them had made in the wall with their claws..... racking up the days, months, weeks, YEARS..... Butch did a quick computation from the number of marks and affirmed with an inward shudder, " Couple yeahs, maybe." The odor of an old batch of formaldehyde mixed with the stench of excrement permeated the death-heavy air of the room. "Presuhved good, too. They didn't rot. Smells like crap, though." He looked at Cassidy. There was a prolonged silence, neither wanting to voice their thought on this. An inevitable thought, that would ascribe these acts to the very person they were trying to aid.

Finally, he spoke.

"Cass... did... _he_.... did _he _know about it....?" 

A grim conflict gripped the Rocket. Had they no pride for who they were anymore? Butch and Cassidy? The most merciless male-and-female pair in Team Rocket? Living for man's vices: power, money, and fame? They who regret nothing, no matter how heinous it might be? These were POKéMON, for crying out loud! They were like tools, only worth how long they lasted. If they were broken, throw them away. If you could get a better one, replace them. Who gave a damn if a hundred out of the thousands and millions died like this...imprisoned in cages--that's what they were there for, right? Cages were more effective PokéBalls.....if anything, it was a MERCY to keep them in cages rather than PokéBalls... you could see them, and they could see you. And there was more room in cages.

And yet, she remained dubious, though her demeanor reflected a complete shift of mindset.

"They're only...Pokémon," she said unconvincingly. Removing one of her hands from her waist, she pointed at the whole lot, assuming  
a contemptuous air. "Not EVEN..." She crossed her arms and upturned her nose, closing her eyes to the macabre room and its occupants'  
tragedy. "Only HALF..." She opened her eyes and looked steadily at her partner, unflinching under her acidic words. "Half-breeds are half the  
deal, Butch. They aren't WHOLE, so what should we care if the boss DID know about it-----maybe PLANNED it, himself?"

Butch fell quiet. In his mind, he knew that appearances could be decieving. Cassidy knew it too, probably, she was just too proud to 'fess up. For all they knew, those could be.....

He froze, stiffer than ever. Cassidy arched an eyebrow and leaned into his face. "What's wrong with you, NOW? Are you still  
SCARED of a few dead half-Pokémon?!"

The other Rocket remained quiet, and ventured cautiously but casually, towards one of the---what looked like a gored Charmander... at least its head and torso. The rest of the body was severely altered. God only knew what the poor creature's head would've looked like had the mutation completed itself. As it was, though, it had died before it could be fully consumed by the transformation. Maybe it was lucky.  
Maybe they were ALL lucky.... maybe.

Cringing slightly, Butch reached between the grimy bars of the cages---judging from the dirth and filth his arm picked up as he groped  
for whatever was inside...these hellholes weren't cleaned. Pulling his arm back he brought the squalid corpse against the vertical bars. Reaching in his other arm, he placed two thumbs on the Char-mutant's eye, and began to pry it open. His partner raised both eyebrows this time and leaned foward with a peevish frown on her face. "What do you think you're doing?!?" 

"Call it gut instinct," he shrugged, straining to expose that eyeball, that he felt, somehow, would tell all. "Coulda swohn they'he---" He continued to open this long-shut muscle, as bizarre as it sounded, might confirm what he... no, what they were BOTH thinking all along. And then, he succeeded in opening the muscle, bathed in terror... and he gazed upon a completely... human eye . "Holy... shit," he rasped,  
pulling his soiled gloves away from the human eye. "That one's...... was... human."

"You're.....NOT serious," Cassidy protested brusquely, though her own suspicions had already been confirmed. Hands on her hips again, she peered into the foul cage and saw the same thing. Her skin paled several shades lighter, and she stared at the rest.....these half-breeds.once her fellow human beings? Not that she gave a damn about her fellow man, but still...how could a Team Rocket operation cross _this_ line... going as far to reduce a human to this state? No big deal if it was a Pokémon, but a _human_.....

She clenched her teeth and after a while, straightened. "Come on, Butch... lets keep going. We're here for that antidote." Her conscience pestered her, almost imploring her to look more closely at that once-human... but she didn't look back, almost afraid of _who_ she might see. 

The pair walked on through the rows of cages, both with lead doubts and suspicions in their minds. They kept foward, not letting their eyes wander, lest they see someone they knew. And yet, they could've been enemy trainers, maybe even police..... people that the whole of Team Rocket would love to see dead and buried. But in their minds, the terrified screams of the humans called out from beyond, grasping the bars of their prisons, wailing, crying, begging for some hint of relent.

This room of cages, of someone else's nightmare terminated with an untidy desk with a number of its drawers half-open and papers jutting out of it. The surface was crowded with all manner of writing utensils and penholders and a conspicuous stack of papers. It wasn't even paper-clipped or stapled. What looked like some of its contents lay cluttered around the desk in random places. 

"Looks like someone was in an awful huhhy to get outta heah," Butch remarked, running his eyes over the slovenly-kept desk.

"Are you going to STARE at it all day? This might tell us what we want to know!" the blonde woman growled as she grabbed the stack and began thumbing through it. Butch followed her lead and rummaged through the drawers, tossing the papers around after he read them. As he cleared out the drawer, his still-soiled arm kept bumping against something heavier than paper, that clattered and rolled along the bottom whenever he moved the drawer. Slowly, the helter-skelter mass of papers diminished, and he exposed what lay underneath. Syringes. No surprise there. That whole time Cassidy stayed frozen, her eyes locked on the papers she was holding. 

"Butch..... get over here."

The hoarse Rocket stood up and walked towards his partner, a little spooked at what he had just seen in that drawer, but otherwise   
unshakable. He stopped next to Cassidy and scanned the stack of paper against her chest. "Look at this..it's a register of all the---" She paused to summon the word. "---Pokémon here." Her finger traced a crooked, quavering line across the first sheet. Butch leaned his head over the paper, reading the words, these words, unlike the human eye, PROVED every last one of their fears thoroughly.

**[Ed.: **I'm sorry... couldn't get this chart to format correctly... apologies.... ._.;;**]**

Specimen| Status | % Pokémon | % Transformed before expiration | Preliminary  
RKTGRNT 001 Demoted 0.0 50 Yes  
RKTGRNT 002 Demoted 0.0 50 No  
RKTGRNT 003 Demoted 2.0 52 Yes  
RKTGRNT 004 Demoted 0.0 50 Yes  
RKTGRNT 005 Demoted 4.0 54 Yes  
RKTGRNT 006 Demoted 10.0 60 No  
RKTGRNT 007 Demoted 20.0 70 No  
RKTGRNT 008 Demoted 30.0 80 No  
RKTGRNT 009 Demoted 40.0 90 No

"Christ... they'he everyone that got demoted... Hahvey and Jack and Marie..."

The two Rockets exchanged narrowed looks. Regaining some of her composure but not her color, Cassidy set down the stack of papers---there must have been over one-hundred, each with the same, impartial, indiscriminate, inhumane list, climbing up into the double and triple digits, and not one of them being more than forty-nine percent Pokémon. She pursed her lips and lowered her voice to a dangerous tone... It was cold, icy, less hospitable than it had ever been.

"We'd better hurry up and find that antidote. The sooner the boss is back to normal..." She clenched her fist and uplifted her face, her eyes of stone locking with one of the mutant's that had died with its eyes open. A fellow Rocket. Turning around on her heel, she bit back the escalating rage until a sphere of blood formed on her lip, which she angrily wiped away with the back of her sleeve. "...The sooner we'll find out if we've been serving a traitor!".

Butch nodded and knelt back on the floor, pinching the objects at the bottom of the drawer and tossing them aside. They broke on contact with the floor, pricking Cassidy's ears up and setting off an alarm within her brain. A puddle of liquid gathered on the floor where the glass shattered. "Don't you know what those ARE?!" she demanded, promptly backhanding him. "We don't have a clue what will happen if we touch that stuff! Be careful with it!" 

She picked them up gingerly and examined them, the eerie-colored liquids contained in the syringes making her recoil in fear. What if these were used on the---she gazed at the roomful of cages---Grunts? Slamming the drawer closed, she got up and refused to think about it anymore. They still had their mission to complete. 

The plain-looking door that led out of the nightmare led upwards, and they mounted the stairs with an increasingly careful step. Clearly, the basement was deserted, but as professional thieves and swindlers, they could never be too sure. Their own shadow seemed threatening, when on any other mission it would be taken for granted that there was a shadow there. Now it seemed as if those shadows were of another, more threatening presence..one whose unmatched stealth would have them, the great Butch and Cassidy, overpowered. 

They had already searched the first floor, which was Ivy's laboratory, but they adhered to the old caveat: "Leave no stone unturned." They ransacked the empty test tubes and their racks and blocks, checking under beakers, flasks, and of course, the syringes. But, nothing came up. No antidote, anyway...Which was then Butch uncovered a book on the counter.

"Cass, I think I found somethin'."

"Hm?" 

"I think it's---a--jouhnal." He flipped through the pages of the notebook, the released cloud of dust dispersing throughout the room. The sheets were scrawled over in nearly illegible handwriting, boasting random information, no dates, as if Ivy was conducting several different experiments at one time and recorded her results one after another just as she was doing them, making for an inscrutable jumble of paragraphs. But there was one section of the notebook..a large chunk of it, under the heading of GEMINI/DITTWO, that dealt with entirely one subject. Her curiosity sparked, the other Rocket took the journal from Butch and began reading it aloud in her smooth alto.

"'My extensive research has led me to conclude that only 'humans' born with 50-100% can survive the process and turn out whole. Pokémon have a natural immunity to this lethal strain, and survive after it mutates. Dittwo and Gemini are immune to further mutations, and I can use them in future research, but they escaped and I can't locate them. I do know that Gemini has assumed the identity of a human, now called Brock---'" Cassidy's eyes widened as she broke the paragraph. "The kid....." she exclaimed in a hushed voice. "'When I determine his location, I'll make sure he finds his way to my lab..(and then the real fun will begin)..As for Dittwo, she was lost in the Andes Mountains-----'" Cassidy blinked a couple of times and laid the journal down. "You don't think that could be------?" Before Butch could answer she cut herself off and waived the idea. "No...it must be another sap." She continued where she left off. "'---but there's a chance I'll encounter her daughter. Alas, she is 100% human. The exception to this hypothesis are those who recieved preliminary treatments at an early age, (an experiment once completed will seal my vengeance), which makes it possible to change a human from 1-40 % Pokémon to 50-100 % Pokémon, and theoretically, hybrids. Because the Pokémon phenotype is recessive, they appear human in every way, but it only takes a syringe-full of the altering chemical  
to set the change in motion, but they must have 1-40 % Pokémon in them. 0 % fails every time. Hybrid Pokémon, like any other trait, requires one of the parents to have this genotype and show it as a phenotype. In other words, one of the parents must be a Pokémon. In theory, hybrids don't need preliminary injections administered. There is no proof they actually exist. Not one was found in a 400 person sample----'?!?!?!!'" Cassidy set down the notebook overwhelmed and disgusted. "Unbelievable.." she gasped, grabbing the table between her fingers in order to steady herself. It was through uneven breaths that she read the last line, staring at it as if she was reading someone's confession to a murder, which was too close to the truth to believe. "'All results show that whether or not they were injected with the strain before, ALL 100% HUMANS DIE when the strain is introduced into their system.'"

Ivy had preached her sadistic ways through the words she wrote in such stark truth that it was as if she had never died, as if she was in that very room, speaking to them in her velvet monotone, explaining every despicable detail.. Cassidy found herself after a while, and regaining her breath, and her normal heart rate, she declared in distressed tones, "We've hit something big, Butch. This could mean people we know...people we work with..are Pokémon and we don't know it..."

"Yeah...but didn't she say those'he not real?"

"Theoretical, she said," the woman responded, the dead Grunts still imprinted on her mind. "Always a chance." She clapped the heel of her palm on her head in a brief turmoil of thought. They didn't survive, according to that psycho, because they were human. A fleeting question invaded her mind. She didn't know who her parents were, neither did Butch. They both felt they'd crawled out from under rocks and were   
determined to paint the world crimson and ebony, without knowing or caring where the hell they came from. Could they be......?

It's all bullshit, she mentally concluded, leaving the table and walking towards the window, standing in the mockery of bright afternoon sunlight. Butch followed her, his hands jittering in his pockets, looking about nervously. He couldn't help thinking that the lab, with this many secrets that no one in his or her right mind would let snooping interlopers escape with, was guarded somehow...Yet, was this Ivy character in her right mind? He didn't hear any alarm, or see any Pokémon drop out from squares in the ceiling, but except for Professor Nanba, he didn't trust scientists...Pulling his hand from from his pocket, he tapped his partner on the shoulder.

"Cass?"

"What?---Don't touch me---you're filthy!!!" She recoiled from the glove that radiated the foul stench of something she'd rather not know the identity of. Butch shrugged it off, and pointed upwards with the same finger..

"Don't ya think the secuhity would've gone off by now?"

She blinked. It hadn't occured to her that a laboratory would be burglar-proofed. But THIS one, with its classified information scattered everywhere for the naked eye to see, there HAD to be a catch... Normally she'd never forget a detail like that.  
Every move of their schemes was planned out....why not every action? But for some reason, she had completely overlooked this. With the flat look of someone who let something get by and knew it, she stated, bringing a palm to her mouth as a yawn   
escaped her,

"Come to think of it....." Her eyelids grew heavier, this sopoforic element prodding her to sleep. Unseen, unheard, unsmelled, it crept over them, a weighty blanket of sleep. Butch slumped over on the hardwood floor in the path of the sunbeam, knocked out immediately. Cassidy joined him on the floor seconds later, mumbling as she connected with the floor, "Sleeping gas..."

*~*~*

Cid regretted that first step.

"God.... Why the hell am I _doin'_ this....?"

The pilot found himself clutching his spear amidst a vortex of white beams of light, blinding in its fierce intensity. He had to shield his eyes to go further, and even then, it burned...it was like the sun was all around him except without  
the scorching heat. In fact, it felt cold. Damn cold. He pushed on, the heavy trod of his combat boots soundless in whatever the hell he was walking through. What WAS he walking on, anyway? There wasn't any GROUND to speak of..... like he was walking on air. Moments later black immersed white, and the pilot felt solid ground very quickly. The fall was stopped abruptly by the ground, and his spear went flying out of his gloved hand and clattering several away from him. 

"Aw, fuck.... stupid Shin-Ras.... picking a crap spot like this to dump people..." Cid remarked in his gruff voice. Rather light for his build, he rolled over and back, caught an equilibrium between his body ad the ground and snatched up the spear. He whirled around just in time to see the white hole vanish into nothing and leave a few  
bolts of light as residue before nothing else remained of the portal. "Looks like I'm stuck here..." He swayed around, catching sight of a number of tall buildings, none of which were as giant as Midgar's, but still showing the mark of a large  
city. ".....wherever the hell 'HERE' is." Across the street a whistle blasted through the air, and a puny, aqua turtle-like thing dashed across the sidewalk screaming something like "squeer-tal" in a high-pitched voice. Seconds later the whistle sounded again and a team of officers sped after it in hot pursuit.

"Shit," Cid said in passive bewilderment, and was swallowed by a sudden impulse. He grabbed his cigarette and lit up, then remembered that two of his party members were missing. "Better go dig up Wallace and Red Rover. Coulda gotten in major shit by now." Picking up his pace, he started a slow jog down the street past several small buildings and light traffic. As he headed deeper into the city that changed: the buildings were skyscrapers and rose haughty and immense above the ground. Stranger than that, some of them had a familiar-looking logo that he couldn't place the identity of...

Then he saw it.

Back from the dead. 

A little smaller, but made the other buidlings look like toy blocks.

With that damn logo, modified slightly, but still radiating that same aura of arrogance and power.

"Shin-Ra-Silph Electric Company,_ Merging a way to a brighter future!"_

"Fuckin' HELL?!" Cid shouted aloud, his cigarette dropping limply from his lips. Eyes wild with utter disbelief, he staggered back, rubbing his eyes to make sure it wasn't a mirage or a bad dream or..... SOMETHING aside from being real. But the damn image didn't go away. "Meteor wiped its sorry ass off the fuckin' planet!!!" he shouted, backing away some more. Then he heard a familiar voice, connected with a familiar body. 

Blue feathers, manly pigtails, one eye, big fat Roman 13... yep, that was Lassie. "Dog-breath, what the fuck is goin' on here?! Few minutes ago, everythin's fine and dandy, I go through some light, then BOOM, there's crazy animals runnin' around with Shin-Ra in the middle of it!!"

The one-eyed lupine/leonine listened, waited, lowered his head and his voice, and whispered to the loud pilot,

"I think we should talk where we can't be heard." He dodged a Houndour that dashed into the middle of the street, taking off around the corner at high speeds. "Over here in this alley," he pointed with one of his forepaws, leading Cid into a dark recess between two of the less-imposing buildings. The glint of a gun struck Cid's eyes. Barret. Good, he found both of them. Now maybe he could find out exactly what the hell was going on. 

*~*~*

When Butch and Cassidy awoke, the sunlight was gone. The wan rays of the moon filtered in through the smudged glass window instead. Cassidy shook herself awake, bringing one knee up and the other, rising to full height. Looking down she saw that Butch was still asleep, snoring loudly. Not feeling the least bit guilty about disturbing his rest, she planted the toe of her boot into her partner's ribs, waking him in mid-snore.

"Wake up! I hope you're not expecting a kiss or something, sleeping beauty!"

"Ugh..." Butch groaned, rubbing his side gingerly with two fingers. He blinked drearily, running his mud-colored eyes around the now-darkened laboratory. He gazed up and saw the imposing glare of Cassidy, whose hands were firmly and impatienly on her hips. "How long've we been heah?"

"Long enough," she growled irritably. She was only beginning to notice it now, herself, but she did feel a little more joyless than usual. Looking ahead down the darkened hallway that invited them with its solid shadow, she stated plainly, "We still haven't found that antidote."

Butch offered a yawn and followed hia partner through the connecting hall. On either side were closed doors. The door they hadn't looked in was no different than the others, except that it was locked. Cassidy had suggested they skip over that one to not waste time and come back to it later when they had searched the entire area.   
She tried the door again, hearing that frustrated "click" as it refused to give way. Frustration growing, she planted her foot on the door and yanked at the doorknob, but the result was the same. She was glad that Jessie wasn't there to see her acting so unprofessional and incompetent..it might give her ideas that the elder was losing her touch. Hah.....fat chance. 

Her teeth grit, she loosed a PokéBall from her belt, and whipped it aagainst the door. The metallic surface resounded against the finished wood as she called it out, the brown rodent materializing, bathed in white light. "Raticate, Hyper Fang that doorknob!!"

The brown rodent flung itself onto the doorknob, clipping its long incisors together, which dismantled the lock. Blinking, the woman wondered why she hadn't tried that sooner, but the main point was, that they could go in. Cassidy recalled Raticate more confidently, turned the knob, and the two Rockets dared a step in.

"Nothing heah," Butch affirmed. The room was sparse and bare, with no decoration of any type to speak of. A rather uninteresting room. Even if Ivy did decide to hide the antitdote in a conspicuous place, she might have picked another room. But, this one was locked, so it wouldn't hurt for a thorough search. They reached the middle   
of the room, scanning for something, finding nothing. And then... that was when Butch saw a man standing behind several other men. They were cerulean-clad men armed with machine guns, and looked ready to use them at a moment's notice, except the one in white, who was peculiarly pushing up the lenses in his glasses. A rather unpleasant-looking person he was. Not to mention strangely menacing.  
One of those people that didn't look like a threat at first, but wished you hadn't messed with. Not haivng seen him before, the Rocket exclaimed,"What the-? Who ahe you?" 

The man behind the armed men slowly brought his piercing gaze level with the Rockets as he stared slightly upwards with an amused smile on his face. Butch got suspicious when there was something funny and he didn't know what it was.....usually  
he didn't like the joke.

"How intriguing the human race is, isn't it? It, in fact, can be compared to this room. It enters the room expecting to find answers, and instead it finds..." He walked foward slowly, menacingly. "Questions. I myself travelled here from my lab in search of Belina, but I'm afraid she isn't here." He stopped walking, and swivelled his greasy head left and right in a quizzical manner. "You don't happen to know where she is, do you?"

Who did he think he was, creepy old fart? Blabbing about people in verbose gibberish? She knew some people could talk about nothing, but in so serious and strange a tone? They didn't have time for riddles.  
Cassidy's face twisting into a snarl, she reached over and grabbed Hojo by his collar. The other didn't flinch once, not under the furious glare of Cassidy, and not under her commanding voice.  
  
"Listen up, we're not answering any of your questions until you tell us where that bitch keeps the antidote!!"

In fact, he was irritatingly calm. Had someone come to him screaming that the world would be hit by a giant Meteor, he probably wouldn't even NOTICE...

"My.....the human race IS forceful.....is it because---" He placidly wormed his way out of Cassidy's grip, returning his spidery hands behind his back, hunching over. "--they think themselves superior? Ah, that must be the answer. Of course..."

"What'he you mumblin' foh?"

No answer, more "mumbling".

"But...what a DISAPPOINTMENT humans are when it comes to survival...they do believe they have been created to be masters of the globe, that this nonsense called God made them owners of creation...when in fact, a mere quarter-dosage of this-----" His left hand snaked into his labcoat pocket and he produced a syringe full of a liquid of dark rainbow. He held the thin tube horizontally between his thumb and index finger, rolling it carefully in between those two fingers.The colors moved about in a sort of portentous dance, a waltz of unforseen chaos, a tango of impending disaster. 

Without warning, he plunged it into one of the blue-clad man's already ezposed arm, the one that was closest to him, and drained the syringe dry of the liquid and filled the man with it.. Butch and Cassidy's mouths fell agape as the victim's flesh began to twist and bulge, as his hands fell clamped on his head, that lost its hair, growing into fur, bright yellow fur, and the man himself shrinking, down, down...and as the entire process unfolded before the Rockets' eyes, Hojo smiled. His point was proven. And in what better way than visual, live proof? The transformation didn't cease there. The Pikachu shaded a pale green, before sprouting fangs and taking on a different hue of eyes. The rest of the mutation completed itself, and with  
a scream that was more of a mangled "PIKA" than an intelligble word, the former SOLDIER fell dead. "As you can see, the result is self-explanatory."

Butch and Cassidy were too terror-struck to retort. Combined with the sheer...nonchalance of the man through that grusome spectacle terrified them even more. Any normal human being would show SOME type of emotion at the sudden  
mutation and death of another human. He was completely unaffected. Unemotional.. Impassive. Detatched. Dispassioned. Dead. 

Hojo was now half a foot away from the Rocket pair. He removed one of his hands from its clamped position to push up his glasses again. "So you see, humans in the evolutionary race, are the weakest contenders." He walked even closer, eerie viridian eyes practically glowing. "The present question is..." His other hand snaked to the corresponding pocket and he slid out a small gun-like mechanism. With deliberate slowness he raised the weapon in the air and levelled it at the paler of the two targets. He posed the fatal question."Are YOU worthy of participating?"

In the split second Cassidy stared down the barrel, she reacted.

"Butch, RUN."

And run they did. The two Rockets bolted out of the way of the swift projectile, which narrowly missed their backs and embedded into the floor. They cleared the doorway, another deadly syringe grazing a hair on Butch's head. Mad with terror, they sprinted down the hallway, the old, deranged man starting off after them, firing round after round of the demonic needles, with a slug's pace, step so light and unthreatening and yet radiating an impenidng demise. 

Team Rocket exited the lab in a very different manner than they had entered it. They ran as if they were hunted, which wasn't far from the truth. They could almost hear the steady "chk" as the needles landed nearer and nearer to their targets. There was only so far one could run before their stamina gave out. But...if they made it to the edge of Valencia, they would meet----

A spark of electric determination jumped in Cassidy's eyes. There was one option open. If they pulled it off, they would survive. And if not.....The different outcomes weren't difficult to affirm. It was win all or lose all. Filled with a new determination, she ordered over the crunching and snapping branches:

"Butch, head for the sub!"

"Right."

They hurtled over the branches and roots, every shadow they saw the madman laughing in sick hysteria before he shot them down... and dead. They broke through the trees, the lower branches not merely a nuisance, but a barrier that would make the difference between hit and miss, the uneveness of the terrain not simply inconvenient  
but deadly, the darkness of the night a double-edged sword, a cloak of stealth but bathing the path in obscurity.

Having Pokémon DNA doesn't sound so terrible now, does it? Cassidy asked herself ruefully as she and her partner crashed through the forest. Running blind... Like rats in a maze. The Rocket thought bitterly, snagging her leg on an obnoxious root and slamming into the ground. The leaves underneath her crunched crispier now that they had a psycho after them with a year's supply of hypodermic needles. Damnit all. 

They had to escape. They HAD to. She pulled herself free from the entanglement and leaped ahead in front of Butch. As circumstance would have it, it was the end of Butterfree migrating season. A late bloomer dove through the trees in a circuitious path inland, and it flitted past Butch. The quick blur of motion jarred him out of control, and he slammed side-first into a gloating tree. Cassidy didn't hear. The Butterfree  
switched direction, smashing directly into Cassidy's back, sending her flying a good five feet downhill and embedding her imprint into a rock wall. She lost consciousness on impact.

The presence of the late bloomer wasn't entirely accidental. Butch and Cassidy had good reason for being wary of the Valencian Pokémon. But it was too late to use more caution. Far too late.

*~*~*

Bleak described the skies above Team Rocket headquarters. They were in accordance with the mood of its members. They, as a whole, had never been this lackidasical. Sad for a day, unwilling for a time, but they had a resilience that were the most sedulous people in the Pokémon world. They never gave up until death forced them to. They were always full of energy, ready to make mayhem, ready to cause disaster...not today. With the core of the organization destroyed, what was the point of making mayhem? With the boss gone who was there to   
cause disaster for? For most, Team Rocket was the only thing they had. Take that away and they'd come to   
ruin. 

For the other side of the spectrum, these younger trainers had seen destruction before, but not at this magninitude, never at this level. People and Pokémon burning, bleeding, dying...a hellish nightmare that replayed over and over and over. Cities falling and crashing and smoking in its scorched desolation...They'd seen all this...and they had a bad feeling that this wasn't the end of it.

*~*~*

Butch rubbed his bruised head. The forest was still pitch black, though he could see slivers of the moon rays weaving through the twisted canopy. Ah... the moon... he'd watched the sun, now the moon. He felt like a different person watching one and the other. Pointless thought. Why the hell would he feel different----? Calm while gazing at the sun, unusually aggressive when staring at the moon. WAIT A DAMN MINUTE... psycho was still after them. He had to get of there now. But he didn't even get the chance to get up. A high-energy beam shone on him, taking his sight momentarily and paralyzing him with shock.....and fear. 

"I must say I'm quite impressed that you've eluded me long enough to reduce my ammunition to one.." Hojo fired the syringe into his arm, puncturing the cloth of his black uniform before sticking the flesh. The Rocket's eyes bulged in a brisk pain, his agonized _expression masked by the darkness. Replacing the device back in his pocket, the scientist finished with a smile on his lips, "...But one is only required to determine your place."

Patches of dark energy punched through the quilt of light, crackling over the struggling Rocket and striking his innards, causing reactions in them that weren't supposed to happen, that couldn't be happening, that.... WERE happening. Cassidy peered over the ledge she had fallen off of in time to see it happen.... she'd seen before... and after... and partial during...but, this was somehow different. This was someone she knew, someone she hadn't cared for recently, but deep in her soul, gave a damn about. Right before her eyes, every sick detail played out in its most hideous fashion. Her own partner's flesh collapsing over itself, bones breaking through the flesh only to shrink and reshape, skin darkening, changing colors, changing texture, thick warts growing all over the hideous ball of reforming mass that screamed in absolute pain. Even the voice, not the same, raspy, yes, but margled, genuinely resembling more and more thoroughly a frog's croak than a man's voice. The eyes, globes of earthy brown melting, literally dissolving into pools of menacing yellow. And as she gazed into that screaming mouth, the teeth vanished and regrew, two lengthening down to his chest. She stood there, her arms stiff on the ledge, her eyes locked on the gruesome parody of Mother Nature's sculpting hand. And when She was finished..... Butch was a mutant Politoed. 

A mutant Politoed that was very much _alive._

The crucial moment had arrived and gone. So the question was answered. And Cassidy couldn't believe it.

"Intriguing...it appears that our little friend is a hybrid," muttered Hojo, stroking his chin between his fingers, and looked up at the remaining SOLDIERS. "You two, locate and capture that girl. It seems that she is a bit reluctant to have the honors of advancing scientific knowledge."

_Damn right I am,_ Cassidy thought. She dared not flee: any noise this close and they get her right   
away. At least her partner was alright. But... that would mean..... if he survived that process... Her violet eyes widened in disbelief and shock. Butch... her partner... her.... friend..... was a... half-Pokémon? Her next breath caught somewhere in her throat; she didn't even hear the SOLDIERs tromp past her or their flashlight beam nick a strand of her blonde hair. 

So, this is one of the "survivors"...if your physical characteristics denote anything of your behavioral patterns, I expect to see some resistance."

Cassidy felt sick: the familiar whish of a PokéBall cutting through the air, heading towards its unassuming, helpless target. But suddenly, as if those slivers of moon had some unspeakable hold on the mutant amphibian, the air split with a resounding croak, and a blast of yellow acid erupted from the frog's mouth. It splattered across Hojo's left arm, eating straight through the sleeve of his labcoat and the arm under it, almost immediately eating through flesh and bone alike.

Cassidy wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that the man was CHUCKLING. "My   
inference was correct," the man stated calmly, simply taking another PokéBall with his right hand and tossing it at the mutant. This time it was caught unawares, and as it sprang upwards with a vicious croak, the orb bounced of its bumpy flesh, swallowing it in a beam of red light and confining it within its circular walls. 

"Butch..... what the _HELL!!!!!_" She couldn't take it anymore. With fire in her violet eyes, she climbed the ledge and charged towards the despicable man that had her partner locked up in that portable prison. Hojo upturned his gaze thoughtfully at her and re-adjusted his glasses with his---well, remaining hand. 

"Ah..... how touching... the princess in search for her frog prince.." An insane glint lit upon his eyes, maddening to both him and her. Calmly he bent down to pick up the PokéBall, minimized it in his hand, and latched it..... latched Butch... to his belt. Cassidy flared; in an explosion of hate, she lashed out viciously, grabbing Hojo by the throat with both hands and ordering in a voice that would melt steel, "GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT _NOW,_ YOU SON OF A BITCH." 

His reply was quiet, not forceful, but the meaning behind it was anything but.

"But my dear... why should I return him to you if he belongs to me?" 

"What do you MEAN, belongs to YOU?! He's MY PARTNER!!!" Cassidy roared, gripping the throat tighter. To be this physical wasn't her thing, but the line was crossed. Normally she'd use Raticate to fight, but there was something... strangely..... gratifying at doing the dirty work herself. But who said this was dirty? Her adversary had---in essence, destroyed Butch. It was no different than if that gun was filled with bullets and not needles... Cassidy's orderly flow of thoughts spiralled into chaos, the result maddening.

_What the hell did he do to _**anyone_ to deserve it? Nothing.... well, other than a few heists and illegal imports and exports and.... oh, hell, it doesn't matter.... and I was a total bitch to him too..... He's not a Pokémon in a PokéBall... He's HUMAN... You put a human in a PokéBall... You're making a mistake... Butch is my damn PARTNER----!!!_**

The rebuke was scathing. He might as well have taken a knife and trace a portrait of Butch across her visage. 

"Ah..... yes..your 'partner'. It is quite intriguing how you don't value him as something more. But I should think, now, that you're aware that he is currently.." His green eyes flashed the cruelty of his purple-haired associate. "...one-hundred percent Pokémon, that you would..... hm... PRIZE him as potential monetary profit."

"Y..you RAT-BASTARD!!" Cassidy squeezed the flimsy neck so hard she heard the bones crunch. She was happy to hear them crack. She wanted vengeance, there and right now, and was too over the edge of madness to return to the plateau of even-tempereredness. The Rocket continued to strangle. So focused was she on throttling the old man that she didn't notice the faint glow clouding the left socket, radiating a   
glowing light, an eerie, alien color. Nor did she notice the thin bone reforming, the stringy muscles stretching themselves over and under the bone, blood vessels re-materializing, and the flesh re-covering it, the arm reappearing whole as if it had never  
gone, showing no sign that there had been acid on it. And that newly reformed arm slinked into one of the pockets, pulled out a different syringe, and quicker than she could dodge it, emptied the liquid into the woman's vein. Her grip on his throat loosened, and she collapsed unconscious at the scientist's feet. Re-clasping his hands behind his back, he bent over to stare at his belligerent catch.

"Pity you fail at flattery. Hm.... Let us return to the lab and see what else you may fail at."

He began to laugh, twitching as he did so. Celine in her fragments frowned at him from above, while a flock of Butterfree fluttered past her, darkening the ground for a brief time. Branches crunched softly as Hojo walked through the black forest with delight frozen on his thin face. 

All was quiet in the forest.

*~*~*

Persian was finally awake. Not that it had eyes to open, but it was moving. It licked its paws and dirty fur and yowled, then flumped down on the grass, exhausted. Meowth was beside him, mushroom sighs floating out of his mouth, when he heard the familiar meow that he had grown to not hate in less than the space of a night. 

"Persian! Ya awake!" shouted Meowth in jubilation. "I 'taught ya was a gonah!" He ran up to the bandaged cat. It meowed weakly, unimposing and far from menacing. But Meowth detected no meaning from it. It was as if the maimed feline was summoning something..strength, perhaps? With another weak meow, Persian rose on its stiff paws, its legs quivering from weakness, a weakness it was too naive to see that it had.

"Hey, pal, ya not ready tah get up yet! Lay down dere and Meowth'll take good care a yah!" Meowth ordered in a half-angry, half-gentle tone, pointing at the larger cat with one of his claws. Stubborn as its master in ways, Persian shook its battered head with a soft snarl, and strained to put one paw foward. It strained every muscle in its body to accomplish that task, but slowly it moved the paw foward, leaning heavily to one side. It didn't take long for Meowth to add two and two together. "Whoawhoawhoa! Where da ya tink yah goin'?! Ya in no position tah walk!"

Persian moved another step foward, its curled tail lashing jerkily. It turned its head in the direction Meowth wasn't in and hissed.

_I'm going to look for the Master. _

"Yah 'gonna look fah ya masdah....." Meowth repeated, looking up with a thoughtful glow on his furred face. "Dat's great, I'll come wid' yah------" His eyes then bulged to the size of his oval head and he clamped his paws on his cheeks in realization that Persian was on its way to committing suicide. "Waidaminute, pal! Yah can't--yah 'gonna get KILLED-!!!"

Persian whirled around and hissed at a rock. 

_I'm going to look for the Master. _It staggered onward. Meowth stood there dumbfounded, one eye half-open and the other bulging wide. An hour seemed to roll by. By then Persian was still visible, but quite a distance away. There, Persian, pampered all its life, used to fine and soft beds, the indoors.....it wouldn't last a minute on its own. With firm resolve, Meowth ran after it. "Ya ain't leavin widout MEOWTH!!!"

James, though he he was faced down pushing his fingers together, the ivory-colored cat appeared in the corner of his emerald eyes. 

"Hm...Meowth?" The cat was speeding off after a blurrier shape. It suddenly hit him. With a frightened squeal, he was up. "MEOWTH, WAIT FOR UUUUUUSSSS!" the blue-haired Rocket wailed, taking off after him. Jessie was less inclined to follow, but after one last look at the ruins and the lost paycheck, she sighed, whirled around, and shot off after them, leaving Ash unconscious on the ground.

*~*~*

Zero-X woke from a fitful sleep plagued with dreams and memories equalling out to one ongoing nightmare. He woke from that nightmare only to find the real one. At least it was pitch black in the laboratory. Except for his eyes. The crimson slits cut through the murky liquid, and opened slowly, growing into triangular headlights. Growling, he licked his scaled chops, tasting the foul liquid that bubbled through his tube. He felt uneasy..... as if someone was watching him... He reared up on his hindclaws, slamming two sets of foreclaws into the glass. The wires had loosened again, the rush of chemicals was less concentrated, and the death glare in his eyes screamed for reparation. And who should he see but a human, with gleaming blue eyes of ice that flared into his red ones of fire.

Something about him reminded him of himself... before he... changed.... the way the human carried himself, erect, proud, with a grave air and...rather conscious about his appearance. He didn't seem like the one to be afraid to step into the daylight, however, whereas he was. The white-garbed man approached the tube with confident stride. He drew up his fair hand and swept his hair back. As he did so, his hand grazed his chin, and he again felt that layer of hair that refused to be shaved. He again ignored it, but it was rapidly becoming another source of irritation. First the headache, then the fit of rage towards the wine, then the milk and fish, then the stubble..... the cycle of which repeated that day. The pattern was becoming too obvious too ignore, but there were other matters of a pleasing nature at hand. Taking his hand away and recomposing himself, Rufus strode towards the monster, his expensive brown leather shoes generating the only noise in the laboratory. He stopped midway and looked up, placid in the presence of this reptile that had burned Viridian and Pewter.

"So...this is what I invested twenty-five hundred-thousand gil in. Pennies compared to the profits. But, the profit will be cut by half without the other Pokémon." His ice eyes shifted. Where could it be? On another note, where was Ivy? She had constantly contacted him or Hojo up until a certain point. Peculiar... her last call came in when she reported that the task had been carried out. No more after that. He looked up at the hideous creature. Maybe the Pokémon turned on..... but surely Ivy would take precautions to guard against a freak accident. He opened his mouth to TALK to the creature, then held imself back. The headache strengthened. What was he doing, trying to communicate with a mindless monster? What was... WRONG with him? 

Rubbing his temple again he backpedalled slowly, bumping into the side of the speaker. The feedback squealed, Rufus jumped and stared into the blackness. Scowling at his clumsiness and more so at the absence of intelligent life he could obtain answers from, he regained his balance and began to walk towards the tube again, the only source of light in the darkened lab. 

Zero-X had his reptillian face pressed against the tube. He stared at Rufus with intent gaze, then turned his head towards the cube. The question was stated in controlled rage... a rage that could escalate to an erupting volcano. For now it was tempered...... subdued... not only chemically but mentally.

"GROAAARGH....." _Heh. A new devilry, I suppose... Another tormentor of the boy and I, perhaps...._

The thought-voice rumbled with the amplification of the speaker. At first Rufus thought that someone else had entered the lab unnoticed, but...he could hear no human footfalls. He faced the monster again, half-expecting its mouth to move in sync with the words emanating from the speaker. A foolish thing to think, but...

No one had time to prepare for what came next: an artificial sun flooded the laboratory. Rufus clamped his hands over his eyes, reeled back, and uncharacteristically yelled out loud, the flood breaking through the darkness and consuming it with light. Zero-X unleashed a pained roar that shook his tube, and startled the SOLDIERs behind the man whose finger rested on the light switch... Rufus' face twisted into a growl at the unexpected transition and he glared death at Hojo. "If you do not terribly MIND, Hojo," His eyes were two hailstorms in their sockets.. "AT LEAST give me a warning that you're there!"

The hunched man shuffled into the laboratory with measured stride, the blue-clad SOLDIERs, minus one since they left Shin-Ra HQ, marching behind him carrying a heavy load. The head scientist bobbed his head up and down, and pushed up his glasses that seemed to be sliding off his nose.

His low-volume voice caused Zero-X to roar louder, and frowning, the man switched off the speaker phone, silencing the monstrosity. He then shifted to face Rufus and answered rather sardonically, "Why yes, Mr. President. I will bear that in mind the next time you enter my laboratory unsupervised and, might I say, uninvited?"

_That insolent... sack of bones... _The hailstorms froze to icestorms. Icicles seemed to grow in the dangerous pupils. No one had DARED to show insubordination to him before or AFTER Diamond WEAPON..... at least, not that he was aware of. But still, HOW DARE HE? __

_That ungrateful old man's SALARY isn't enough to keep him fat and happy? No..... wait... not fat.. The man's skin and bones._

_Still, he has no RIGHT...!_

"Hojo, might I remind you that I am the chief executive of this company, and that YOU are working for ME...?" His voice was laced with aggravation. There was that damned headache again. There was a lapse between his sentences as he clenched his teeth and turned away from the scrutiny of the old scientist; obviously he wouldn't want anyone to see him in such a state of mind. The pain subsided enough for him to finish uninterrupted, and he concluded through masked fury. "I suggest you select your word choice more carefully the next time you speak to me, or I will arrange your removal." 

"Ah..... I understand perfectly, Mr. President," Hojo answered with mock pleasantness in his gesture.

"I shall be returning to my office," Rufus announced, swivelling on his heel and heading for the exit. Hojo didn't turn to watch him go, rather he stayed stationary near the door of the lab and stated:

"It is a shame you weren't able to finish your tour, Mr. President. But I can assure you, that you will be able to tour the lab at a later date." He snickered to himself, and revelled quietly in this knowledge of some buried mystery. The conversation coming to a close, he switched on the speaker, tremendous sound flooding the laboratory as Zero-X continued to roar. Hojo was oblivious..or perhaps pretending to be. Whatever it was, he didn't answer the trapped reptile." Did you take the opportunity to observe my specimens? I have acquired another, two more perhaps."

Rufus stopped with one foot out of the doorway. There were two: he had stated it himself. Anxious at this new development, he levelled his cold gaze at the scientist's glowing green one, straightening his collar as he did so. "Where is the other one?"

"I see you didn't take the liberty to operate the controls," Hojo remarked as he paced towards the central panel. He pulled a lever and pushed a switch, fiddling with the buttons and knobs, and he and Rufus watched the soundproof barrier fold, emitting a heavy clang, half of the mechanism sinking and the other rising, revealing the cube and the horror inside it. He turned a dial on the speaker to maximum. "I suppose that nutrition was ample enough for you, Gemini?"

The demon sat there, sobbing faintly, the girl, white and shrivelled, in his hideous arms. The base of the cube was wet with a lurid mix of tears and blood... HER blood.... blood that dribbled down his underlip tauntingly. Gemini had its claws tangled in her  
green hair, trying desperately to disentangle them, those bloodstained claws, that didn't have a right to TOUCH her, they were so stained with evil... EVIL... yes, that had to be it. He, Brock, Gemini, was evil. He was bloodthirsty because he was evil. He had drank Suzy's blood because he was evil. But...as the cube opened, ending his isolation and increasing his torment, Brock saw those cruel orbs of green staring at him, placid, guiltless... oh, no... not guiltless. If he alone was guilty for Suzy being..drained, that goddamn scientist was responsible for leaving him there with her, starving him... until he couldn't take it anymore. Until he... pierced her neck... lapped up the blood... the river of death... the drink of vampires.

.........._FUCKING..... _**BASTARD_......_**

The resounding voice echoed throughout the lab, rendering it everywhere though it was coming from a limited area, doubled, tripled, quadrupled in volume because of the monster's anguish. It gouged clawmarks into the cube, the screech grating on Rufus' ears. He could only... stare... THIS was the other Pokémon that was... _more_ hideous than the first, blood dripping down its lip, blotching the cube's floor with red. It was chillingly calming to him. This embodiment of devastation in such a low, savage form... was actually speaking. 

"They both can communicate?" Rufus inquired, rather shocked at the fact. Hojo turned to answer Gemini, and replied to Rufus still facing in the same direction. 

"Why yes... even the least-developed organisms have a method of communication. " His pale lips curled into a sadistic smile. "No need to harbor such violent feelings, Gemini. After all, given the nature of the organism you are, sentimental emotions should disperse in---"

Gemini cut him off with an agonized roar.

_OH, NO... You proved I'm an ugly-as-hell monster and a vampire to boot, but you can't take my emotions... my feelings..... you can take EVERY single goddamn thing away from me, but I still... love her!!!_

Still gripping the dead girl, Gemini released a feral snarl, the anger and rage contained in the words behind it pronounced, the persistence in the assertions tireless. He believed...... no..... KNEW they were true, though everyone he'd known shot it down. EVERYONE had rejected him... except for Misty. If Suzy had been... a-alive, maybe she'd understand, too. IF she were alive. Her murderer stood outside the cube, remorseless.

"Hah... love... how can you insist you have....." He imperceptibly twitched at the very word. "AFFECTION for an OBJECT that has undeniably become your... heh... shall we say.... 'big mac'...?"

Truth hurt. Truth hurt like hell. 

_Because... because... I JUST _**DO_, that's _**WHY!!!!!

Hojo was geating up for another acerbic retort when Rufus cut in. The irritation on his face was now much more evident. The scowl was deeper, more teeth were showing, and he was uncharacteristically opening and closing his fists. Nervousness. 

"Hojo, you mentioned another one, two more Pokémon you captured. Why don't you you show them to me instead of carrying on an argument with this....." He stared at the growling monster. "THING?"

"Yes........ of course.... that is a high priority on my agenda." Finally turning to the SOLDIERs outside the laboratory, he raised his voice to make himself heard, but it still didn't qualify for a shout. He gave the fatal order. "Bring in the specimens."

The SOLDIERs marched into the laboratory. One of them had a PokéBall on his belt, and they were both carrying a cage. A shocked roar erupted from Zero-X as the SOLDIERs moved away from the cage and captive was revealed. 

It was Cassidy in hysterics. She had been yelling and screaming the entire time. Her face was red with anger, she was out of breath from trying to escape, and her face was wet from... tears? Hojo stole a glance at the reptile and smirked, before staring down at the woman in the cage. "Your police file tells a great deal about you, my dear, including your methods of capturing adversaries." He motioned for the SOLDIERs to move foward, and he shuffled towards the panel. With envenomed diction he remarked, "You seem to prefer the use of cages as to more, shall we say, HUMANE methods, hm?"

"What do YOU care?! That's none of your business!" With the ferocity of a rabid Houndour, she rammed at the bars with her head, her skull rattling from the shock. She clasped both hands around it to stop the shaking, but was back at it again when Rufus entered her burning view. 

"Is this the Pokémon-in-question you've been raving about?" he asked, pointing at her like... she WAS a rabid Houndour. If she obviously wasn't a human, he wouldn't have assumed otherwise.Her demeanor alone was enough to prove that she wasn't human.

"Mm... yes... I have not ascertained if she is a hybrid. If she is not..." He started to enter a different set of commands, warming up the study cell adjacent to Zero-X's. He began to roar again, his red eyes fixated on Cassidy. One of his best agents... about to be sent to Hell. Through it all, Hojo was detatched. "I suppose it wouldn't be terribly tragic. I would have a fresh cadaver for dissection."

Cassidy's eyes bulged in terror, and they were consumed by violet fire. What did this crackpot think it was, open season on Team Rocket?! Sure, the kid was trapped in that intolerable hell, but so was the..... boss... and, soon..... Butch and... her. She  
took a glance at the tube. A good, long, look. It was built...for a monster. Refusing to accept it, she lashed out at the closest object there through the bars, smacking the back of her hand on one of the machines sitting giant and imposing in the lab. Recoiling it in pain and humiliation, what sounded like a... GROWL came rushing from her throat, and she defiantly screamed, 

"I'm NOT a Pokémon, I'M A HUMAN BEING, DAMNIT!!!!!"

A low hum radiated from the nightmarish tube that was waiting for the Rocket. Biting back tears, she searched frantically for Butch's PokéBall. Knowing the... frog... was there left her with a tinge of hope... That she wouldn't be blasting off alone. No reassurance there. Only the cold voice of her captor.

"Hm..... we shall see. You will either speak with your leader shortly or serve as an excellent replacement for my... used cadaver. Am I not right, Gemini?"

The aforementioned writhed at the very mention of Suzy, and held her white corpse more tightly, tears staining his monstrous face. He hung his hairless head, the world that he knew entirely crumbled. Gazing into her face with his inhuman eyes he wasn't comforted, only tormented. 

_S...... Suzy......_The liquid in the other study cells rippled as his jaws widened and he roared. _YOU.... YOU... _Gemini clenched and opened his fists, each time, sending black rivulets flow from his palms onto his wrists. He stood up shakily on his clawed feet, the devil-like tail whipping behind him. There he was, surrounded by his family's murderer and his associates, and his tormentor, with his friend dead and the only one who didn't reject him for what he was miles away. Brock, in every imaginable way, was broken.

_Wake up, Cassidy..... WAKE UP..... this is some damn stupid nightmare...that's all it is._ The SOLDIERs roughly unlocked the top of the cage and hoisted the thrashing woman out of it, transferring her to the study cell in the manner that one would transport unbreakable cargo. Cassidy slammed against the back of the tube hard, stars flitting back and forth in front of her eyes. She heard the door of the tube close.   
What felt like her last moments she could see everything from the tube: the kid, the boss, the blue-eyed guy, the damned SOLDIER that had Butch, and the scientist.....

Hojo lifted his wiry hands and nimbly entered commands and instructions on the panel. Every once and a while he looked up from the panel to see the specimen, but he only saw her, the value, the POTENTIAL... not the fear and terror that marked her face as clear as the substance that formed the tube. Perhaps that was how these researches could pretend that they didn't commit these atrocities..simply by refusing to SEE.....

"Let me out of here, bastards!!!" Cassidy banged on the glass desperately, kicked at it, rammed into it full-body again and again until it hurt, but nothing... NOTHING would get her out of there now.

From out of the tube's ceiling erupted a myriad of syringes, all filled with a glowing liquid. They shot down all at once like a pack of serpents, puncturing the target everywhere at once, striking her with pain she had never before felt, pain to equal her rival's at her failed attempts at thievery. Every shock, every burn, every moment of her rival's pain surged through her in that instant the needles pierced her body and the liquid drained into her. They retracted to the ceiling when their dastardly purpose was finished.

As she felt doom in whatever form t would come in creep up on her, she growled caustically, "You finally beat me at something, Jessie... AGHHHHH!!!!!"

Dark energy cascaded over her as the transformation commenced, escalating the pain to unbearable heights. The Rocket fell to her knees, clasping her face as the shock shot through her bones, muscles, everything that made her well, human.... Then it began to change. Her hair lengthened, thickened, became coarse, slowly changing hues from blonde to grey mixed with dark patches of brown. The internal change happened simultaneously, bones twisting and bending to accomodate for components that hadn't been there before, lungs and liver, kidney and heart, and the damn blood.... the bright crimson darkening to the chilly grey of a misty dawn. Ears sharpened and escalated to the top of her head, a head with no hair, but fur, and throughout it all, she could not only FEEL the change, but SEE it...she could SEE her own hands, the bones inside them, transforming into paws, and the nails into claws, bursting through her gloves.

Her uniform ripped as a pitch-black Houndoom-like tail sprouted out of her flank and her body changed shape, the black cloth falling to the floor of the tube. She fell to her forepaws, her scream jumping several octaves into a high-pitched shriek, like the Supersonic of a..... Zubat... The remnants of her clothes fell as she suddenly reared on her hind paws, two grey wings growing from behind where her arms were, attatching the aforementioned to the leather-like appendages. Fangs protruded from the gums, blackening as the night, and her eyes, cold violet globes of hate and constant disdain for her rival's team, melted, and were consumed by the rest of the brown-grey fur. She ceased to see.

It was over. Silence. Blackness. The void.....? Was she human? Was she..... dead?

_B---Butch?_

The familiar sound of a PokéBall opening. Liquid moving. As if something had been immersed in jelly.

She spoke, he answered.

_Yeah...._

She felt her face. A wing followed and brushed against fur. She scratched it with her... claws..... it felt wet... blood.

_It's true, huh?_ _I'm a....._ Her tail swished, the sharp end of it scraping her back leg. .._..A---hah... hah... hahaha...._

She couldn't bring herself to say it. Say that because she had survived the transformation, she was.... one of.... them..... And one that couldn't SEE, on top of it all. 

What were they trying to STEAL all these years? Themselves? Could they even believe it based on the word of one mental case? They had seen a non-Pokémon die in front of their eyes. It must have been a fluke, a mistake, an accident. But... the half-mutated... ...Grunts....they all died and they had both... survived... along with the kid and their boss. And that display screen of DNA that Butch saw... he knew COULDN'T lie.

She heard a listless roar. 

_Welcome, Butch... Cassidy. I must say, I'm impressed with your loyalty. You've followed your boss all the way to Hell._

Another roar, different in tone. She felt her ears flex. 

_A one-way trip on Satan Airlines.... Aloha._

The two white-garbed men stood listening and watching the spectacle from outside,   
Rufus in awe... and perhaps a tad disturbed... by the transformation he had just witnessed.

This could save a lot of face for Shin-Ra Inc. Hand the prisoners Heidegger didn't want to Hojo. It eliminated any and all trace of the identity... and since most of the victims the scientist obtained were the scourge of the Pokémon world, no one would come inquiring into their whereabouts, and if on some chance they did.... Well..... they could easily meet the same fate.

Smiling inwardly, the president of Shin-Ra looked down at Hojo.

"Impressive, Hojo," Rufus commented in a calm voice, hiding the respect he had newly acquired for the old man. He ran his sharp eyes over the four Pokémon, two still in shock, one softly growling in distress, and the other still crying over the girl's body. "This could prove to be extremely beneficial to the corporation.... Yes...." He turned his head towards Hojo who was still facing away, arching an eyebrow in no more than faint curiosity. "How many of these creatures do you plan to obtain?"

The scientist kept his eyes riveted on the panel, activating the chemical-pumping hooks and burying the mechanisms in Butch and Cassidy's skin. He was not at all irked by the resulting croak and screech of pain, or the eerie silence that soon followed. Switching off the controls, he re-adjusted his spectacles and slowly turned towards Rufus.

"Well, Mr. President," Hojo's eyes burned green with fires that could only be quenched by water from the River of Styx itself. He bowed his head and narrowed those same orbs of light. "To coin a phrase...."

He smiled.

"Gotta catch 'em all....."

*~*~*

**TO BE CONTINUED.........**

**Author's Notes (B9T):** Hi! ^^ Yes, I used the evil catch phrase. But it was tempting. **[Ed.: No, it was just breeleeyant, duh. :P] **^^; Yes, I know that bats aren't blind. Again, tempting cliché. As you might have noticed, Hojo is especially evil in this series. It's for a reason. ^^; Stay tuned for Chapter 15! ^^ 


	15. At Hell's Unlatched Gates

End of a Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger (Sadly Erin wasn't able to get to it, but she tried! ^^ Her absence explains why this chapter sucks.^^)  
  
A/N: Big mistake. Suzy in chapter 13 is Suzie, from Celadon City. The one with the Vulpix. Yep. NOT Brock's sis. From now on I'll respect the difference. ^^; Correction in chapter 11: the one with the lolipop is CINDY, not Suzie. A little typo, there. ^^; It's been confirmed on the name of the other parent of one of the characters in the anime, but, we can dream.^^; Also, please excuse the bad formatting. ; ; It erases all italics and bold when I upload. ; ;  
  
*~*~* A mild-looking man in his mid-20s to late-30s walks through the door. The light is on: prior footage shows that it has been on the previous night and the whole morning. Too preoccupied to turn it off, perhaps? He walks towards his desk and sits in front of a video-phone. Messages are displayed on the screen. He pushes his chair closer to the video-phone until his face is almost touching the monitor, blocking the camera's view of the face of his correspondant. He plays the message..  
  
Vid-phone answering machine: I didn't think you'd be mentally available... Even Demoni knows you're about as alert as... Her laugh is slightly condescending. an anesthetized Slowpoke, so I made this repeatable in case it doesn't sink in the first time. I'll be arriving Wednesday, 4:00 sharp for the prototype. click, beep Oh...if you get any ideas about accelerating the cerebral decay on crackle, blip, the meek-looking man pounds his hand on the monitor in mild panic.. --don't. I need bzzzzz for my own projects. zzzzzt--ssential for psshhhhh...  
  
Man 1: Why won't this work? shakes the monitor, picture comes back on after three seconds..  
  
Vid-phone answering machine: --sides, aren't you interested in seeing a wildcat someplace else other than the zoo? Or a.....A pause...real-life dragon? click  
  
Man 1: hesitant Why, yes..but-----  
  
The door opens.  
  
Woman 1: I thought so. She slinks in while the man stares at the video- phone. Do you have it ready? Bring it to me.  
  
Man 1: ---But, Professor, I don't know where to contact you-----  
  
Woman 1: Turn around, idiot.  
  
Man 1: He turns around to find the woman scowling behind him. Oh..ah..Professor Ivy! I didn't see you there---  
  
Ivy: sighs exasperatedly, stalks towards him with one hand clutched around something. You see NEXT to NOTHING, Elm. It's a wonder YOU became a scientist..She shifts weight to one hip and narrows her eyes at Elm, then turns to look at the black box-shaped device sitting on a table at the other side of the lab. A smile, venemous with delight, quickly drops into a frown. I see you were careful in protecting it. She glares at Elm dead in the face. You weren't planning to keep the prototype for yourself?  
  
Elm: N-no.....of course not...!  
  
Ivy: Getting greedy, Elm? She smirks..  
  
Elm: I thought it might be s-safe if I enabled a security lock---you can never be too careful, with burgulars and thief type Pokémon---  
  
Ivy: You know, Elm, you shouldn't tell so many lies.....you would look awful with a long nose..  
  
She slides out the object she was holding. It is too small to see clearly. She holds it in front of him in a threatening manner.  
  
Elm: W-wait, Professor I-Ivy--you don't want to do that---only I can break that lock-----y-you..need me!  
  
Ivy: What-a-shame...I was sure what I'd do with that spare cell, too....but- --Her eyes narrow....do I have to remind you that we work for them? She strikes, holding a container of some sort over the man's mouth.. You look pale, Elm....She unscrews the cap and dumps the contents in, the man struggling futilely while she holds his mouth open with her other hand, that has a python's grip on the roof of his mouth.. I think you're overdue for your medication...  
  
The tape runs out of film as his entire visage is immersed in a sharp cruelty and total sadism identical to the demonic professor herself...  
  
Events involving two Planetouched members, recorded by security camera 0234. .Tape archived by the Valencia Island Police Department and the PRPL (Pokémon Rights Protection League)..  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 15: At Hell's Unlatched Gates  
  
She woke up with a crushing ache in her gut. Her body still crackled with the residue of white energy, and blood caked the place where the blow struck her. She grabbed her chest; it burned with a white fire, invisible, but just as painful...  
  
Pain? When was the last time she felt pain? Not just the nip of a paper cut or scrape, but a genuine, full-blown pain? The kind of pain that comes from the injury that draws blood. Come to think of it, she'd never seen her own blood before.....Grandpa said it was red because of the oxygen--that was a bluish purple when it flowed away from the heart---that it carried the nutrients through your body--he never said anything about it being THIS painful when it dripped from the breaks in the skin--  
  
May groaned and doubled over, falling at the feet---and the mercy of, the demonic angel.  
  
He watched her with a serene gaze as she hit the floor with her face and the rest of her body following.with a hard smack.  
  
"I await that day. When the clouds part after the storm....." He cast a silk eye on May. "It draws nigh." He stared into the heavens thorugh the window, and away from the girl's view, curled his lip in disgust at the clear sky, the action failing to mar the perfection in this portrait of feigned purity. "The heavens guard a lowly land...where." He almost snarled the word, "humans are the sovereign...be watchful." A white glow encompassed the white veins in his eyeballs, strangely restless in their sockets. "Be watchful, especially you, girl..."  
  
"What--what're you talking about?" gasped May, raising her face from the floor, her normally kind and genial eyes globes of a meshed clash of anger and confusion.  
  
"You will know in time." She wasn't sure, but May thought she saw the white- robed man fade into air, ghostlike and ethereal. "It's been a pleasant conversation, non-believer, but I must divert my kind here to hasten the coming of dawn." He turned around and formed an invisible trail of steps, fading out of sight before her very eyes as he walked through the window and vanished. Yet, his voice still remained, as disturbingly warm and nonthreatening as ever. "After all, don't we all wait for the end of the world?"  
  
"Wait--where..come back here...what're you saying...?!! Why'd you attack me- -?! " She strained her neck to look up at the space where the white-robed man was. "Did Gary---provoke you or something?-- !" The room was as it was. There was no trace of anything the least unnatural. As far as she was concerned, it might has well have been a vivid nightmare that had distorted her perception of fantasy and reality...  
  
The residual energy began to die, leaving only the gnawing wound. She grated her teeth and came up on one knee and then the other. With the quickness of a Lickitung caught in molasses, she stumbled out the door.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Not even she'd gotten spared.  
  
You can't put innocent and victim into the same sentence. More than half the time the "victim" victimized some other victim. And that victim did the same to another one. And so it went until you could stretch the chain all the way to the Moon.  
  
Misty was a wreck. Her face was sooty from the smoke and hot from the blaze, exhausted from running all that way and her mind in chaos, her hair tossed and her body shaking with fear and confusion, still without her Pokémon and alone on the edge of the torched city. But all that paled when she saw the blood..four claw marks carved across her arm that spoke of a world of hate..BROCK had made those...without explanation, exploding in rage, unwarranted, unfounded---The drip of blood wouldn't have been as painful to look at if those bastards at Team Rocket made it, but-----a friend---not just a friend, her BEST friend----  
  
"Brock...!" she called stiffly, every jerk causing that wound to sting, as if he wanted to pass on some of his pain to her. She brushed it aside and jumped upwards, her right arm hanging useless at her side. "Brock...!" she called again, the aftermath of the catastrophe registering in her mind: Pewter City was gone. She swivelled her head to gaze upon the rubble, the laughter of children and the determined shouts of challengers: it took some time for her to absorb that these signs of life and activity would never be heard again because it was destroyed. And if it was destroyed, then... "He'd look for the one who did it-----" she reasoned, taking a step foward away from the scorched ruins. "But where could he--?"  
  
The answer came in a shadow. It passed over her in an unguided pattern without any sense of direction, shooting across the sky like a black comet. The trail it left was invisible, but emanated such negative waves that Misty could almost see them..the guilt, grief, pain, balled into one wretched sphere, cosmic egg of half the world's hatred. It made no sound, silent as the spectre barred from speech, burdening its yoke alone. But...it was a winged shadow...could that be him? "Brock??!!" Misty shouted, holding her dead arm and following the black body, her feet flying into a frenzy as she closed some of the distance between her and what might be her friend. As she gained speed, the shape swept lower, its wings...and the shape, came into Misty's view. Leather-like, scaled wings, huge clawed feet, a slender, yet musular neck, characteristics that would mark a traditional dragon...Misty slowed down immediately. That wasn't Brock. She wanted it to be, but.... She didn't turn back. Instead, she walked discouraged after the black dragon, in tenuous hopes that she'd find her friend. Hadn't lost people found their way home by following birds? Maybe she could find Brock...by following the dragon.  
  
She had to try.  
  
*~*~*  
  
"So what yer sayin' is..." Cid began, leaning against his spear propped up against the cemented bricks. He lurched foward, puffs of grey smoke ascending through the black sky. "..Them Shin- Ra lived through Diamond and all that shit, they got together with a company from "Po-kee-man" world AND they're 'gonna screw with it same's they did with our planet?!"  
  
"Goddamn right 'dey're 'gonna screw it!" Barret interjected, pumping his arms in heated hatred. His glared at the pompous tower that rose grand above them. Grand his ass. They'd wipe the streets clean with the Shin-Ra. "But dat ain't 'gonna happen 'cuz-- -" He threw his gun-arm into the air, ready to loose a shot at the building that very moment. But he wasn't about to risk notice this early on. Not until they were inside the building. He lowered the gun and turned to his companions, taking in a breath of the Vermillion night air in through his barrel chest. "---we 'gonna shuddem down befo' 'dey get 'da chance!" He moved foward, stopping within an inch of a sweeping flashlight as cops covered the street. Their dutious footfalls disappeared around the corner, and Red felt it clear to speak.  
  
"Careful," he warned, bringing up hind leg and scratching his scarlet muzzle with the short claws. The lupine/leonine shook his red coat and passed his tongue over his chops in ponderance. He joined Barret at the fore and sniffed the ground. "We're dealing with a new enemy. "  
  
"Keep yer hair on, Balto," Cid coughed, hoisting up his spear and grasping the handle, its butt smacking into the brick wall behind him. "Ya think we'll barge in without thinkin'?" He shook his head gravely. "I ain't in the mood to get rabies from them mutts." He took one hand off the spear and jabbed it at the distinct shapes of black and blue rooted in front of the entrance, coupled with the growls and snarls of leashed Houndoom clawing the street in front of the entrance. They looked just as vicious as Shin-Ra dogs, :one of them was sliding while trying to keep the leash firmly in his grip. The hellhound on the end of it barked ferociously, its narrowed eyes consumed with utter rage and its very breath, passing through clamped fangs, cooking the air around it.  
  
Cid closed his eyes, folding his arms across his chest while gripping his spear. "Now, maybe if Tifa hadn't screwed the Highwind over.... maybe then we could have flown her over to that damn portal-thing and brought stuff over in here... Maybe then we'd have a frikkin' chance to get to the bottom of this shit...."  
  
"Yo, we don' need no Highwind to do nothin'!" Barret interjected adamantly, hurling a wad of spit onto the pavement in complete defiance, stopping Cid's furious protest in mid-curse, "We busted up da Shin-Ra on da Planet, and we 'gonna smash em fo' good dis time!"  
  
Cid would have argued this to the bitter end, but he wasn't an idiot. They had a job to do, and after they sorted this out--- well, he'd have plenty of time to chew Barret out for downplaying the importance of his girl. That fat bastard.....he'd teach him a thing or two when they got back to Gaia...  
  
The AVALANCHE members crossed the dark street, coming within a few feet of the savage Houndoom. Their presence set off a fearsome howling. All three stood stoild in the face of this: they'd seen much worse before. Surprisingly, the SOLDIERs didn't make a move, pulling the howling dogs out of their way. Outwardly showing no surprise at this lack of security, AVALANCHE entered the light-flooded building.  
  
The accusations of "terrorist" never came. The only sounds heard was the typing of something or other at a desk, some people admiring the Silph/Shin-Ra banner on the wall, others oggling at the gold-framed photograph of Rufus and the aging Slph President shaking hands in the city square of Saffron. Some SOLDIERs, but they walked by AVALANCHE as if they weren't there. Barret especially was unnerved...as the founder, he'd come to expect it. In every building he walked into on top of the Plate, that was the first thing he heard. Cid collectively voiced their concerns,  
  
"Thought the welcoming ceremony was 'gonna have more fireworks," he muttered. Red snapped his wolfish muzzle towards him and warned,  
  
"Don't expect it. It might be more than we can handle."  
  
"More?" Cid blinked, stopped walking, and started to laugh. "After handlin' the one-winged pain in the ass, we're ready for anythin'," he affirmed confidently. Red hadn't livened, and the pilot heaved an exasperated sigh. "Ya ain't convinced."  
  
"We didn't get equipped. We can't fight back as easily if we're attacked."  
  
"Fuckin' hell--?!" He grumbled under his breath, "How'd paranoid Spot get stuck on this joyride?"  
  
"Yo, cut da shit! Da elevator's busted." Barret's huge foot connected with the elevator door, hitting it with a thud. It stubbornly kept closed. Cid drew his hand up to his bristly chin in the classic "thinking" manner, moved his hands along the handle of his spear to get a good grip on it, wedged the point into the elevator, and wrenched it back and forth, trying to get the damn thing to open. After several minutes of sweat and toil, the elevator hadn't opened and the spear was bending out of proportion.  
  
"Fuck," Cid swore under his breath. "The thing's gettin' warped." With a grunt of exertion he had his weapon out and examined it, rubbing his thumb on the smooth metal that had twisted in one place. He then looked at Barret, and flashed an...almost malicious grin, coupled with the elated sparkle in his blue eyes. Barret was 'gonna pay for insulting his pride and joy. .Pay through the nose. Or the feet. Whatever, as long as he'd pay.  
  
"We don't have the Highwind, so....We're 'gonna need to take the stairs."  
  
While Red and Cid dashed off towards the looming stairway, Barret stood rooted to the spot, that six-letter word spelling doom in his immediate future, and he said the first appropriate word that came to his mind..  
  
"..Shit!"  
  
*~*~*  
  
As the elite, they'd been blind and deaf.  
  
The least you could do is turn on the lights!  
  
Those animal sounds, though they couldn't understand, had words to accompany them.  
  
The lights're on.  
  
And the words meant something. They had never listened.  
  
You picked the worst possible time for a joke, Butch. Come on...this isn't April Fool's!  
  
Until now. They were forced to listen. Listen and respond.  
  
Cass, face it, you're blind.  
  
Why must one learn the hard way?  
  
Ha..HA...HA...that's VERY funny, Butch. ...Turn.....on...the.....god....damn....lights..  
  
"SKRYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"  
  
"Whoa.....stop screamin'......shutup!"  
  
Indeed, everyone had shut up. They had fallen to dead silence. The dropping of a swan's feather would have been thunderous and quaking. Butch blinked through the murky liquid he was suspended in, indecently, nonetheless. But no one was around to see him...only the Pokéfreaks. He stared at the inhuman faces, that were staring....two in shock, one in jealousy, their pupil-less eyes fixated with blazing intent on him. His own pupils dilated in supressed horror. "Buzz off...don't get closuh, freaks......"  
  
The sound escalated, the roars, screeches, hisses heightening to intolerable volume. Butch tried to clamp his hands over his ears, but found the wires..the cords...wrapped around his arms, rendeirng alleviating the ear-splitting bedlam all but impossible. And the monsters...though they were likewise prisoners in the tubes, their distorted faces seemed to grow closer, and they were, growing closer, but the one closest to him, frantic, wild, clawing with its paws, attatched to wings, beating the glass with the leather-like appendages, and its cheek splotched with grey blood...its tail whipping violently, and its jaws..ocnstantly snapping shut and flinging open, as if trying to say something...in mangled screeches, strangled squeals, but something...he couldn't understand.....what was it, damnit?  
  
He pressed his palms against the glass, now face-to-face with the bat-fox. Its nose twitched, catching his scent, its eyeless visage moved up and down the barrier, mouth opening to emit that piercing screech. It was a hostile scream, but there was meaning..somewhere...sure, they were freaks...but maybe they used to be human, just like him...  
  
"Wha?" Butch turned his neck towards the sound of a quiet footstep. The psycho that was chasing him and Cassidy...His brown eyes narrowed, and he balled one hand into a fist. "Hey you, what'd you do with Cass?!"  
  
Hojo was hunched in his usual position, staring down or straight ahead, his hands hidden behind his curved back. Those instruments of control, manipulation, concealed as one may hide a knife on their person.  
  
The distracted answer came nearly a minute after the hoarse inquiry.  
  
"Cass? Mm? Oh, yes...the girl...if you can tolerate the thought, she is..." He nodded towards the tube, his grease-covered bangs sliding over his viridian eyes. "There."  
  
Butch shook his head as he stared at the brown and grey creature. "Quit..screwin' with my mind. That ain't Cass..." he mumbled. She was at least midly pretty, though her caustic tongue and recent bitchiness sort of sullied that image. And her voice..... Rarrely showing fear, scathing to her enemies, likewise to what friends she had, vain and haughty: it wasn't like this cry of desperation that pounded his ears.  
  
"SKRYEEEEE!!! SKRYEEEEEE!!!!"  
  
"How amusing...I believe she is trying to tell you somethig..." His pupils flicked to the other side of his narrowed eyes behind his miniscule lenses. Butch followed him with his eyes, reaching the switched-off speaker. "Hm..tempting...." His head moved towards the tube. The Zubat/Ninetales beat the glass of the maddening prison with its wings, frenzied, frantic. "Yes...if you are both tractable, I think that not having the luxury of.." He began to pace towards the screen mounted on the control panel, away from the speaker. "..understanding one another...will be sufficient to acclimate you to the change."  
  
"What'he ya talkin' about?!" he cried, glancing panicked at both inhuman monsters, the one in the flesh and the other in the soul. "Cass isn't a---" Another screech, less harsh. He squeezed his eyes closed, and opened them, staring into the eyeless face of the monster. There was nothing...nothing about that Pokémon that resembled his partner in the least.."You'he lyin, creep. We ahen't Pokémon."  
  
"Ah...definite loss of memory...is it..." He pulled up his labcoat sleeve, checking the digital watch on his right wrist. "Five thirty A.M exactly......hm...sunrise." He smiled. "I suppose time will tell if you are indeed lycanthropic."  
  
Ignoring whatever protests Butch had, the old scientist shuffled towards the control panel, picked up the headphones, dangling them there in Butch's sight in subtle taunting emphasis. He then placed them over his ears, turned the speaker on, and listened to the voices of torment while Butch screamed himself near mute at his isolation.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The alarm rang obnoxiously on the twenty-fifth floor. AVALANCHE's tread thudded continuously on the steps. Security came pounding after them, the armed wave clattering up the stairs.  
  
I swear if I ever find out who tripped that wire I'll fuckin' kill him.  
  
"I told you," muttered Red in a snide manner, bounding up the steps. Cid ground his teeth together and grumbled,  
  
"Shut yer trap, Clifford." He could hear the SOLDIERs and those hellhounds tromping up the stairs, calling "halt" and "freeze" and all that other shit. Ha...like he'd really do that. He bent at the knees and sprang up, covering a whole flight and caught up to Red, Barret soon closing the distance between the other two. "Just friggin' run."  
  
They cleared another floor and found themselves cut off at the fore and rear. Apparently SOLDIERs had gotten hint that they were coming and assembled to trap them. Not that it would do them any good...3rd class SOLDIERs were cake to them by now.  
  
They drew their weapons and struck on either side. The opposition lashed in full force, their Houndoom, snapping their heated jaws together, the savage teeth locking together and clipping Red's coat. With a feral howl he leapt and clawed the Houndoom, that tumbled down the stairs whining in agony. No sooner than that one fell, unarmed workers swamped the north exit while other Houndoom advanced. Cid snapped his head towards his scarlet comarde. "Ya hold yer pals off..I'll clean out the rest," Cid resolved. He brought up his spear and grasped it one-handed, balling the other one into a fist. "All right, ya motherfuckers."  
  
The Silph/Shin-Ra employees were fazed by the mere sight of the spear, but they had a weaponry that the enemy didn't have. They detatched red-and-white spheres from their belts or took them out of their pockets, and threw them on the steps. They bounced once and burst open, unleashing a plethora of bright light, and he teetered on the step as he closed his eyes to shield them. The workers saw their chance and ordered together,  
  
"Rattata, Pidgey---Attack!!!"  
  
Before the pilot knew what was happening, a scad of rat and tiny bird Pokémon lunged at him, throwing him off the steps onto the floor, bare hairs away from a flame shot from a Houndoom. Red tackled it and raked his deadly hairdress onto its muzzle, twisting so it caught its foreleg and chest. A wild yelp but a fearsome counterattack, as the dark dog trapped Red's paw in its teeth, trying to get to the throat which he was blocking. Busy at the front Red had no time to react to the back, and a whirling stream of fire connected with his flank. Barret shot into the mass with his weapon, but the SOLDIERs returned fire, and he backed up on the stairs into the herd of Rattata and Pidgey.  
  
"Shit..." Cid lifted his rattling head, sweeping his gloved hand across the back of it and bringing blood with it. His perilous view of the carnage cleared from a muddy blur. Holy fuck, it looked like one of those mutts was jumping at him. He stood up and regained his footing and his spear, and drove it into the pouncing Houndoom, canine yelps filling the stairway and Pokémon blood staining the floor.  
  
"Awright, dese shits're goin' down," resolved Barret, the Rattata and Pidgey gnawing and pecking at him, holding their grip fast though he shook them off. This fight was getting messy. Red couldn't hold off all of the dogs, Cid was unwittingly moving into the crossfire by standing at the base of the stairs, and he was running out of ammunition. It looked like they'd be bringing in the heavy armed guards, too.  
  
It was time to end this. He raised his gun-arm over his barrel chest, the glowing Materia lodged in it flashing green. From it hurled a burning cold ice. The last Houndoom charged and spouted a flame towards the human. The ice blast connected with the flame and melted into liquid form, cascading onto the remaining Houndoom. It howled in pain and smacked into the floor. The Shin-Ra SOLDIERs opened fire again, Cid jerking around wildly to dodge them. The shells pock-marked the wall, bloody with Houndoom laying with their cranium smashed against it. AVALANCHE retreated farther up the stairs, finally breaking through the mass of Silph/Shin-Ra workers.  
  
"Yo, up dis way," directed Barret. He charged through the door, letting off one last round before Red and Cid charged through the doorway, slammed the adjacent keypad, and shut the partition. Red clamped his upper jaw around a Materia and flipped the solid Mako onto his headdress. He worked quickly, activating the Materia and closing Cid's widening head wound, sweeping his tongue over his muzzle as the Cure took affect.  
  
"Guess I owe ya one," he remarked, hauling his spear to his side. He and Barret looked around this silent room...it looked like storage, judging from the crates piled on the floor. They advanced, and noticed the oddly-patterned floor. Red sniffed at it and whined. There was something awfully wrong about this. The hair on his back tensed and straightened. He informed his comrades after a tense intake of breath,  
  
"We'd better watch our step from now on---"  
  
The collective suspicion was confirmed when the four squrares that were forming the pattern, scattered methodically about the room, flickered with white light. Simultaneously, at first, then alternatingly, in a slow pattern that gradually quickened. All three readied for the oncoming threat, in attack position, every nerve alert and wary. And then the flickering light materialized into the four navy- garbed elite enforcers of Shin-Ra.  
  
"Sonovabitch..." Barret exhaled.  
  
"No...the Turks," Reno replied with a smirk. Cid gaped wide-mouthed and he had trouble keeping a firm hold on his weapon, as if the handle was coated in grease. It slipped from his hands several times, and he finally planted it at his side, while he stared wide-eyed at them.  
  
"Didn't wanna believe ya..." he started, pursing his lips and gritting his teeth. He looked the suited enemies up and down..yep, they were the Turks, alright...that dead shit, on top of it all....he wasn't there when it happened, but so his comrades told them it wasn't a pretty sight. "So...whaddya want?"  
  
Brief and direct as usual, acting on the nature of his orders rather than his own designs, a severe man that obeyed his orders without question but would often question them in private, the Turk leader took a step off the flickering square and his eyes, that had a strange.....dead look to them, glared past AVALANCHE's cool front and into their guilty consciences.  
  
"Explain your.." His voice was controlled and showed no hint of anger at the deed. "recent handiwork."  
  
"We ain't the ones that friggin' attacked first," Cid growled under his breath, keeping his spear pointed at the navy-suited enemies. Tseng was cool under the visible threat, and offered a peaceful recourse.  
  
"We want minimal bloodshed."  
  
But AVALANCHE had enough run-ins with the Turks to trust them. The reassurance that the Turks' intention wasn't deadly fell flat on their ears. Barret levelled his gun-arm and crossed the other arm under it. His dark brown visage was one of fury. He and Cid knew all too well about Shin-Ra's broken promises.  
  
"'Minimal bloodshed', my ass! Dem's fancy words ain't gonna fool me none!"  
  
He stepped foward, unholstering his gun. At the same time his other hand moved under his jacket and onto his belt, unhooking an object from it. Red's eye followed it; the other Turks were doing the same, enlargening in their palm. Whatever reluctance that harbored itself in the man was veiled by the collectively bellicose nature of the Turks...and their orders.  
  
"If that's how you want it..."  
  
Elena and Reno kicked the crates, and they burst open, revealing the rocks with arms...only that the other two didn't have only arms, but they had legs, and the third one had teeth. AVALANCHE made the first move, but the live rocks rolled away, wedging themselves between in the doorways. Cid took a glance back, swore, and looked at his comrades. Red leaned back then foward, flexing his leg muscles; it didn't look good from where they were standing. Barret was rooted to the floor in attack position. "You don't leave us with a choice."  
  
The Turks drew their own weapons as well as threw the red-and-white balls, Cid growing sick to his stomach in very recent memory of the previous brawl. He brought his other hand to grip his spear, eyes fixating on the white light that emerged from the spheres as they landed.  
  
"What're yo' so edgy 'bout, man?" asked Barret, noticing Cid's reaction. The other didn't turn around, for fear that the Turks would stab if his back was turned.  
  
"That's where them friggin mice and birdies're comin' from...aw, shit---"  
  
In one menacing chorus, the white light formed into four monsters. The one by Elena looked harmless enough, except when it turned around, a menacing flame shot from its back, Reno's monster sparking myriads of electric currents from its unwieldy-looking body, a brown creature armed with red boxing gloves by Rude with determination to kill in its eyes, and an oversized mouse with a pair of dagger-like claws and stiff brown fur raised like spikes stood in front of Tseng. Red cloesd his one eye thoughtfully and looked up at Cid, who was biting his lip so hard a drop of blood flowed from it.  
  
"So...what were you saying about we were ready to deal with anything?"  
  
Both the Turks and their monsters charged.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Zero-X could feel it. That squeezing in his stomach, aggravating pangs of hunger refusing to leave. At least half of the heads, the organs and tissue and cartilage and bone...had been digested. And now...he again vied for sustenance.  
  
A light heightened in his blazing eyes and he growled. The weak, subdued note in it had disappeared, for the time being, the wires loosened, the chemical stream lessening, until he was numb to its effects. Gemini was sensing a change, and he sniffed, his nostrils dilating. Still holding the corpse, covered with his tears, to his muscled chest, he stood up and hissed. Something wasn't right. He smelled it in the air..bloodlust. What he had so recently felt himself...he could feel the stab of guilt in his heart, and he shut his inhuman eyes, feeling the self-loathing. build up again. Through tears of remorse he placed one clawed hand on the glass, his eyes glowing in pure hatred.  
  
The reptile turned his massive head towards the demon. He gave no answer, and instead fixated his blood-red eyes at the human..man..trapped in the tube, unaware of the lethal intention, floating, lost, in his jumbled, disjointed thoughts, isolated though surrounded by Pokémon, isolated by the language barrier.  
  
Zero-X growled, the distressed note in it having drastically changed, to a different, deadlier tone.  
  
Hojo picked this up, and turned one of the knobs. His black eyebrows knitted in thought, and his face twisted into a reflection of perplexity.  
  
"There seems to be no brain signals whatsoever...." He re-adjusted the headphones and his glasses, looking from the controls to the growling reptile. "Perhaps its brain underwent a full bombardment of the chemical flow..." He held his narrow chin between his thumb and index finger, pale as the moon. "Or did Belina 'program' the subject in ths manner...? Hm..." Hojo leaned foward, resting one elbow on the steel panel. Zero-X grew increasingly agitated, scratching at the walls, shoving the weight of its skull against it, attempting to serrate it with its fangs....."The Negative Impulse Generator has seemed to lost its initial mental effect..." Hojo stated with no inflection or hint of emotion. He was about to depress that button that would plunge him into the nightmare again, but then he heard a blast of crackling flame, a brisk "zap" of electricity, and a hissing whine. "Tsktsktsktsk.....It doesn't learn..." But contrary to Hojo's predicitons, instead of entering again into a state of submission, the flame blast appeared again, and grew larger, its source almost---oblivious to the massive electric shocks triggered by the severed wires, roaring through the lab. Hojo stood up slowly, and the glowing orbs that were his eyes narrowed. "I strongly caution you, Zero-X.....if you're planning on escaping, you'll find your aspirations quickly eliminated." He unplugged the headphones and turned off the speaker. Apparently the creature lacked the intellect to know that it was futile.  
  
Calmly, unhurriedly, the scientist got up and walked towards another part of the room. He stopped midway, and stared at the demon in the opposite corner,who was filled with hateful disgust. He chuckled to himself and continued towards his destination.  
  
The wires continued to snap and the current surged through the monster's bones, buts its raging desire for human flesh burned inside it. Its roar penetrated the soundproof walls of the lab, rendered so to conceal its wretched purpose. Gemini watched this thing unfold, and growled..he didn't like direction this was taking. He smelled it. Bloodlust. He knew what the killer was capable of...Still gripping Suzie in his inhuman claws, he roared a taunt that sprang from his loathing heart, black from the blood that coursed within his own arteries.  
  
So, who're you going to choose, huh? You'll probably kill BOTH, knowing YOU...One whole CITY..my FAMILY...  
  
isn't enough for you, is it? You're just going to keep coming back for more, until EVERYONE'S dead. Then YOU'LL die of overreating. I'd LOVE to be there to see it. Ha...if I don't rip my own fucking throat out before then.  
  
Those damn tears came again, and he hissed,  
  
I hope you choke on it.  
  
There was a shattering of glass, a final explosion of electricity, before the outpouring smoke dispersed, and the weakened Pokémon stood there, crackling with electricity, dripping with the bluish liquid and its black blood, about to be mixed with red. It raised its head, blazing scarlet eyes shutting to keep out the infernal lab light, and released another roar, but not of triumph, but of...hunger. It lifted one clawed foot up and brought it down, the sound resounding throughout the entire lab. The Pokémon nearest to the demolished tube smelled the air. For some reason, the boss was coming over there...and then it realized what was happening, when the terrified scream of Butch reached her ears.  
  
Zero-X had reached the tube and was clawing at its base, ramming its horn into it, attempting to uproot it, break it, smash it in the floor...to get to the warm meat inside. Butch's currently red blood stopped flowing. He himself lost whatever color he had to begin with. He had never been so desperate in his life.... not for anything or anyone. But now, he wanted to say something to Cassidy, if that really was Cassidy.. even...for the bare reassurance that the last time he was going to see her was in that damn forest in Valencia.  
  
The giant Pokémon rammed its horn once more into the tube's base, dislodging the glass from its foundation, roaring each time it did so, the terrified human writhed uselessly around amongst the wires, as the creature clawed at the the glass in front of his face, knowing that it soon would be his face. He involuntarily groaned: the mental images snaking through his mind, of sliding down the throat of his own..boss..  
  
Meanwhile, the creature that was Cassidy couldn't see what was going on, but she could hear it... God, she could hear it...She raked her short claws across the glass, yapping and screeching in terror...what was the boss doing to Butch?! Why couldn't she..help...him?!?! Why?!?!  
  
On the opposite side of the lab, hunched over a different set of keys, the scientist, blind to this...murder that was about to be commited, typed feverishly, alternating gaze between the monitor and the buttons, not bothering to check on his specimens. But he could hear them well enough.  
  
"It is sometimes astounding how an unfortunate circumstance can become a favorable one," he remarked, removing his glasses and cleaning them on his labcoat. "I am infintely curious as to what Gemini and Zero-X's abilities are...."The cracking of glass. The monster had almost broken through. Butch went mute in that instant. "By simulating Belina's brain signals--" He tapped another set of keys. "--- each command I give... will be fulfilled without question. The possible lycanthrope will be salvaged, Gemini will be able to vent its emotions that would result in a nervous breakdown if kept contained, and when this experiment is concluded--" He entered a final command, as Zero-X halted, Cassidy's desperate screech hanging in the air, and Butch gaping into the very jaws of Hell. "--the intractable specimen will be subjugated."  
  
Hojo watched in sadistic satisfaction as the walls of the cube opened, the dark creature trapped inside it gazing into nothingness in a mesmerized state, the same way it and its adversary acted around..Ivy.  
  
Hojo held a controller-type device in his hands, and he stood, shuffling towards the two Pokémon, still as marble statues, whose stationary position hid the burning passions in Gemini's soul. They awaited their mistress' orders.  
  
But there was only the master.  
  
Butch could only watch relieved and horrfied. He had a bad feeling that the scientist wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice one of them. But he wasn't sure which side he should take... his boss almost eaten him, for Christ's sakes...so he could eat him...as if he had enough fat to make a good meal. And yet...he couldn't make that distinction between employee and dinner?  
  
It was too damn close...he thought, his mind clearing from the shock. The bat-fox also had calmed down...proving this was really Cass. He looked at her top to bottom, ugly brown and grey form in the liquid, that was calm for the moment...almost graceful in this inhumanity---wait--- what the hell was he thinking?! Cassidy truly was a Pokémon, and if psycho was telling the truth about that, then he also was one...  
  
Hojo slid the knob to its rightmost position, triggering a spark in both specimens' brains, and they moved to face each other, on opposite ends, controlled by the commands that the scientist entered into the device. Once they were far enough from the lab equipment or the study cells, he turned and walked back to the central panel. He leaned over to punch more buttons while his right hand gripped the device, and an electric field converged from opposite ends and encased them in a hollow dome of electricity, drawing the boundary lines for a battle arena. He put the headphones back on, looking foward to this..what he expected to be a hate-filled conversation. With a cruel, calculative grin, Hojo severed the link between the "mistress" and her slaves. The effect was immediate: Gemini lunged for the throat with vengeance blazing in those two pairs of Hell.  
  
"HUUUOOARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!" DIE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!  
  
The slow-moving reptile barely blocked the vital artery, and Gemini satisfactorily tore a chunk of hide with a swift slash. The ebony blood flowed thickly, blotching the lab floor with the midnight fluid. Zero-X had no time to retaliate before Gemini was upon it again, in Diablo's fury, burying its claws into the rough hide and gouging through it, the hand of Revenge drenching itself in the killer's black blood. But the tables turned...Zero-X swung his massive tail, the giant limb connecting with Gemini's chest and sending it hurtling into the electric field. He came charging back, aiming for the open wound, his forked tongue rattling, Satan himself about to strike the fatal blow. The reptile reared up to its full height, and batted with its clawed hand, loosing a roar of pain from Gemini as three claw marks were carved into its bleeding chest. It landed flat on its back, convulsing from the shock of having its skull slammed into the floor.  
  
"GRRRRRRRRRRRROARRGH....." I do not wish to kill you, boy. I am no longer the enemy.  
  
It sensed self-preservation alone. There was no remorse. No remorse...for this terrible a crime...a crime against Pewter City, a crime against his family, a crime against himself.. Fangs grit, Gemini lifted its head off of the floor, chest heaving. The old blood from its face rolled down. It failed to mask the lethal hate in that hellish visage. The beast came back down on all fours, creating ripples beneath the weight. With a nimble spin it hurled its fore and hind claws into the creature's huge chest, slashing like mad, hurling chunks of the hide away until he had almost reached his heart, and it crashed onto the floor, back-first. The deathblow position. The black heart beat below a river of blood, and a shredded layer of scaled hide. All the fight was ripped from him, and he lay vulnerable for the final blow of Justice.  
  
Giovanni felt the end was near. He felt his cold blood flow below him, his vision getting hazy, each breath coming with more labor than the previous...but..Gemini then stood there, letting its hate-filled eyes bore into the guilty soul of the murderer.  
  
BULL_SHIT...you'd kill me as soon as I turned around...just like...EVERYONE that was important to me..It flexed its claws towards and away its scale-covered palms, shaking from the torment churning within its shattered soul. And you'd kill me. Then what's going to happen to everyone else? People..humans who didn't do anything wrong ending up as YOUR dinner? The mental words tore at the shreds of what remained of the Rocket boss' pride. Brock began to circle his enemy, the whip-like tail lashing behind him. Then he stopped. A vermillion aura began to emanate from his inhuman forehead. He clamped his claws on his head, facing downwards, a horrible snarl leaping from his throat. He fell hard on the bloodstained ground, causing some of the blood to jump with the impact. The crimson aura sprouted outward from its head to encompass the whole writhing figure, and he screamed in agony. What's...HAPPENING..in my HEAD?!  
  
Butch stared at everything: the battle, the Pokémon, and the man behind it. His spidery fingers were turning a knob, corresponding with the violent glow radiating from the kid. Damn..he almost felt sorry for the freak.  
  
"Ah......so this is the rumored...psychokinetic ability that Belina particularly maximized in Gemini..." Hojo remarked amidst the subject's strangled screams. "It appears that it has been unaware of this ability prior to this...it seems to be undergoing a gratuitous amount of....." Butch thought he saw the scientist smile at the word, " pain to achieve the full level of effectiveness..."  
  
There was a flash the hue of sunset. As Hojo watched the Pokémon execute the attack and the black hulk quake from the gigantic force, he turned the knob to its original position. Gemini's body shuddered and collapsed, drained completely, with a thud on the black floor. The silence was absolute. Butch murmured something or other, and plastered his face to the tube. Were they both dead?  
  
The low hum in the room abruptly vanished as Hojo removed the "arena", nonchalantly unclasped two PokéBalls from his belt, and dropped them on the near-dead Pokémon. The bloody monsters vanished into the devices in a muted red light, and he made his way, holding them in his thin hands, to a machine at the rear of the lab. He made no remark as Butch's distrusting eyes followed him from one side of the lab to another, or Cassidy's hostile cry as she picked up his scent. He placed both PokéBalls into the machine, a rainbow-hued glow shimmering around the Ball and penetrating the metal to whatever lay inside it. He then removed the Balls from the machine and walked back across the lab, stopping at the cube. Without a word, he set the lighter of the PokéBalls onto the stand and it disappeared, shooting down and straight through a connecting tube, depositing the healed..and now scarred, Gemini in his cube by the corpse. Seeing that his specimen was back in place, Hojo took the other Ball, attatched it to his belt, and shuffled out of sight.  
  
*~*~*  
  
AVALANCHE had never fought anything like this before. They were finding the fight impossible.. trying to counter the monsters' attacks while the Turks hit them with a Turk Light or Grand Spark that would stream through the ground and hit not only the targets, but the patterned squares, sending more debris hailing on them. They didn't want to admit it, but this time, they were outnumbered and somehow, overpowered.  
  
"Aren't we way in over our heads?" inquired Red. He rolled over in time to dodge the electrically-charged paw of Ampharos that sent a left jab into the floor, charging it with negatively-charged particles. Cid looked over at Red, getting sandwhiched between Rude and Hitmonchan in the process. He vigorously shook his head, and cracked the butt-end of his spear straight up into Hitmonchan's lower jaw. The Fighting type fell up then down, goraning as bones started to crunch as Barret backed up on its chest. Quilava attacked long-range with a whirling ring of hot flame, grazing the AVALANCHE leader's shoulder. He came crashing down and landed on Hitmonchan, which was unconscious, if not dead already.  
  
If it was, Rude showed no feeling. Then again, when did he? He and Reno double-teamed Red, the elder going for the head and the younger swinging his rod at the tail. Cid came running and vaulted with his spear, smashing it over Reno's head. The red-haired Turk fell unconscious, and Cid took a breather.  
  
"One down-----shit!!" Quilava expelled a sheet of smoke. It was transient but impermeable, and it put Cid in the dark long enough for Elena to hit him with a Firebomb.  
  
"Two to go." She smirked as the super-heated explosion brought the pilot down covered in burns. She turned her attention to Red and Barret, the former's eye flicking back and forth between his unconscious comrade and the approaching enemy and the latter up after the fall. Barret yelled to the lean mass of red fur,  
  
"Take dat side!"  
  
Red nodded and turned tail. Quilava, Ampharos, and Elena aimed for the rear, Tseng, at a distance, returned Barret's fire, with Sandslash dormant, but ready to strike at any given moment. Tseng seemed withdrawn: his mind wasn't on the battle, as if he was afraid of going back...  
  
He felt his hands move. They were still cold....  
  
The point of the Masamune drove into his chest, sending a stab of cold ice through his entire body. For a split second he could see his murderer's face..full of unconcern, as if he had just swatted a fly. He felt the sword slid out from his chest, cleanly, coated thinly in blood. He dropped to his knees and then flat on the temple floor, where beads of blood dropped. Night fell.  
  
Tseng's eyes hardened and he pulled his focus away from the memory.  
  
Not now. You've got a job to do.  
  
He twirled the gun and spent his last bullet. But it counted. It grazed Red's side as he sunk his teeth into Ampharos chest, loosing a yelp of pain from both of them and a thud as they crashed to the floor beside the pilot. Red had barely regained footing on his paws when Sandslash decked him from behind with a full body slam. One to go.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Hojo was faced away from Giovanni, who was strapped with heavy restraints on an operating table, covered in white scars that spelled out Gemini's incomplete vengeance.. He held a rod in his right hand, operating a Bunsen-Burner type device with his left. The flame rose high, heating the lightweight rod. At intervals the other would growl, clawing at the table. So predictable, these subjects were. They would whine, cry, struggle to avoid the pain..doing everything within their power to avert it away from them. Unfortunate that they didn't realized that such pain was unavoidable. It was part of their existence, and perhaps their purpose. The scientist pulled out the rod and tested it on a stone slab.  
  
"Hm....the termperature is too low..." Thrusting the rod into the flame again, he turned up the gas, and the flame's hiss jumped into a roar. The orange light was now visible to the creature, and it growled uneasily. Something was about to happen...smething that could not be good, but.....  
  
When the rod was red-hot, he withdrew it, and looked upon the black mass of flesh, muscle, and bone. He waited for a reaction, and the dull red eyes broadened, and he threw back his head, unleashing a roar that bled the scientist's ears. Zero-X finally put two and two together, the burning rod, the way the human held it like a dagger, the way he was strapped to the table, it all pieced itself together into a twisted, ruthless fact:  
  
He was going to BRAND him.  
  
"Rather ironic, Zero-X, isn't it?" he chuckled. The roars in the room grew increasingly more desperate. "That you believe so strongly in the concept of..ah, what's the word?" He rested a finger on his chin. "Yes...ownership.." His tail and head thrashing now, crashing through the air in all directions, the rest of his body held immobile by those GODDAMN straps. "Well, my friend, what do you make of being owned, hm? Carrying the name of your superior on your--" He scanned the creature's body to locate a suitable "canvas". He zeroed-in on the left upper arm, below the shoulder. Demeanor exuding a lack of expression so complete it was maniacal glee, he raised the burning rod over his head like a sword, and plunged it down onto the victim's hide. The stench of burning flesh and a roar of raw pain that unravelled into a scream permeated the room, and through the black smoke the narrowed green eyes floated, two lanterns suspended in Hell.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Beads of perspiration exploded over Barret's body. He'd been crammed into close situations before, but this one frazzled his nerves. The goddamn monsters were at their peak of fighting and didn't let up. If he was a bit slower than he was, they would nail him for sure. And of all places to get stuck in that situation was the corner of the room..He jerked his head to avoid a burst of flame that connected with the wall. He got a glimpse of his comrades behind the three monsters and the remaining Turks assaulting form behind and next to. Shit, if he didn't heal those wounds soon, they'd die. But he was surrounded, and the Turks showed no sign of letting up, and he was running out of ammo. Options were running out. Time was running out. Escape came into his head.. If he could get out of there and then cure them...  
  
The AVALANCHE leader charged up the firepower in his gun, a huge energy ball expanding to mind-blowing proportions, the very heat singeing the Turks and the monsters and warding Elena away. The ball shot from the barrel, smashing into the wall. Shards of concrete and metal shot from the point of impact, blinding the Turks with a sheet of smoke to rival a Smokescreen. Elena coughed, waving her arms to clear the view. Red fireballs stabbed the smoke sheet as Quilava tried to hit something, and did...Sandslash's harsh cry pierced the smoke-choked air as the mouse tumbled to the floor.  
  
When the smoke cleared, AVALANCHE was gone. Tseng narrowed his eyes at the crude rip in the wall. He holstered his gun and set his jaw. Reno and Rude lay in the confused mess, wounded and still. The still-conscious Quilava growled tiredly, half- scanning the room for signs of AVALANCHE. A few seconds gone, Elena gaped at the telltale hole and asked with a hint of confusion in her voice,  
  
"Aren't we going after them?!"  
  
"No. The President's orders."  
  
An exhausted Quilava and the rest unconscious disappeared into the Turks' PokéBalls, and Tseng looked down at the unconscious Reno and Rude and shook his head in slight dismay. He couldn't help thinking that the Turks were losing their usefulness to the company.....the very concern that his associates mentioned out loud. This had been the most noteworthy mission they had this month, but the President himself put no high priority on it. Much less Heidegger, but the slob was getting more negligent every day, sending the SOLDIERs where the Turks were needed, and if it jeapordized potential profit, didn't do anything about it. And the President, young and callow, still let these kind of things happen. Turning his focus back to his wounded associates, he crammed the thought into the back of his prioritized mind.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Jealousy had been a relatively unknown feeling in Brock's sea of emotions. Maybe sadness or frustration over losing a betrothed woman to a man that had been in the picture a long time before he showed up, maybe....MAYBE... A faint spark of jealousy. Never this burning rage at seeing Butch catch a lucky break and be human...  
  
And he just HAS to be a Rocket. He reminded himself acridly. He answers to HIM.  
  
Gemini raised a shaking fist then let it fall. He dropped to his knees and let his demonic tail sink behind his clawed feet and cupped his shaved head in his claws. What's WRONG with me? I don't HATE people because they're in Team Rocket..I'm not LIKE that..I CARE...He slowly looked up, shutting his eyes and opening them as the lab light penetrated the cube. His lip quivered, his shoulders shook. Desperate for a reassurance, he grasped Suzie's corpse and asked it, I CARE...don't I?  
  
The white corpse made no reply.  
  
Cassidy had been listening---how couldn't she? Her ears were now her eyes. And though the only one who she could communicate with was the kid, it was better "talking" to him than being completely isolated. Now knowing what the boss was capable of...Butch's screams echoing throughout her mind, she wasn't sure if she could be at ease communicating with the boss. But, he wasn't there, either. The psychotic scientist had taken him...inwardly, she wondered, if he would come back in one piece....or alive, for that matter.  
  
She took her snout away from the glass, hearing Butch's even breathing and not much else from him, preoccupied with the same thoughts, as he also was isolated from her, and faced the direction of the tortured being without seeing him, having no eyes to see with.  
  
You're not going to get much of an aswer out of a stiff, kid.  
  
Gemini was startled at hearing the cold, often mocking voice of the blonde Team Rocket member echo through his head. He brushed Suzie's green bangs gently away from her face and glared at the blind bat/fox, opened mouth and show of teeth manfiesting renewed rage.  
  
Why don't you just go and rub it in AGAIN, bitch?  
  
Cassidy pulled back, a little miffed, and tried..without success, to place her on her hip as she was accustomed to, but the bone didn't bend that way. Nothing..it seemed to work the way she had known it to. But this persistent frustration didn't stop her from retaliating in full force in the way she was known to do so: with cruelty.  
  
Look, I've got my own problems to deal with, so do us all a favor and stop talking to your dead girlfriend!  
  
She waited for the demon roar in torment. Ha...that hit hard.  
  
PROBLEMS?! You think you've got PROBLEMS?! That's easy for you to say. You got off easily. Science guy didn't RIP OFF YOUR DAMN CLOTHES and take all that nice orange hair. You didn't get REJECTED by your own TOWN, or "serve" a "master", or watch your sister DIE IN FRONT OF  
  
YOUR EYES. And.Bud's a NORMAL PERSON and he isn't DEAD.  
  
First of all, it's Butch, she shot back icily. We can't talk to each other because he's a damn human! Hmph...The kid wasn't getting the hint that, as much as she hated to think it, they were in Hell together. They were there for the same reasons, the same purpose...for now, there weren't any differences between them. They had went through more or less the same pain..what was this kid raving about, anyway? And most of all, they as Pokémon, were barred by their vocal cords to coomunicate with the other kind. It broke every rule of her proud vanity, but...you learned to accept the truth after awhile.  
  
But he's human..he's NORMAL...he's not a freak...came the sorrowful, even pitiable protest. The demonic hatred and jealousy had melted into the almost timid voice of a desperate young man. But the growls weren't any less inhuman.  
  
"Ah......"  
  
Both heads snapped up and greeted the word with hostility. At this moment, their common antagonist was clear, and both focused their hatred onto that one human. He tilted his jaw up, gazing at one Pokémon and then the other, lifting a finger under his his lenses that made the lab light reflect in such a way thta masked his cold gaze. He bent his head downward, pondering the meaning of their conversation. He took off the headphones and laid them in plain sight, partly for Butch to see and squirm at. "How strange you have such acrimony against your current state." The human Rocket suddenly banged on the glass, his eyes fixated on the speaker. Why wouldn't he turn it on? He felt he was going crazy...he, Butch, the level-headed one most of the time. Cass was right there and he couldn't hear what she was saying...completely isolated from his partner.. And that freak was enjoying the fact he was cut off.  
  
The "freak" was concentrated on other matters.  
  
"Fortunately, I am prepared to begin a new experiment," he stated with very little joy at that, as if it was a matter of fact, an everyday occurence, something to be taken for granted . The reaction was simply the opposite from the mutants. A murderous harmony of Pokémon cries flooded the laboratory. "...Not to worry.." His voice lowered a few notches in volume. "This involves quite a different set of chemicals...I presume you two---" The green spheres were rooted on Butch and Cassidy. "---were seeking the antidote. Ah, but of course you were... You would have no business there, otherwise." He raised his head with his chin between his fingers and let his gaze fall upon the Rockets with his mouth partially opened in a thoughtful smile. "Had you known where the antidote was, you might have never come under my observation."  
  
Cassidy and Butch froze. Could that mean, then...that they wouldn't have found the antidote even if Hojo hadn't stopped them? That they would have failed either way? Cassidy felt her claws curl into her brown paws. In a fleeting fit of fury she rammed her snout onto the glass, and then calmed. They didn't know. They wouldn't have known. Maybe.....it was inevitable?  
  
"Fortunately, that was not the case, and I have a sizable sample. Ah...yes...you will all have the pleasure of reversion, with the exception of the homo sapien." No reply. Their reduced mental capacities coupled with the strain on the mind failed to grasp the meaning. He removed a PokéBall from his belt and it enlarged in his hand, his wrist bent slightly downward from its weight. "But first..." He heard Gemini's savage growling, growling like a territorial dog faced with another breed.  
  
The first tube destroyed, he would have to use the fourth one. Indeed, he had been reserving it for two specimens he hoped to acquire soon, but for the time being, it would house the one in this Ball. He moved towards the stand and placed the heavy sphere onto the device, and it was again sucked into the new tube. The monstrous shape of Zero-X appeared. Gemini stopped growling, began to roar, then stopped midway, and a feral laugh came from the cube. He was standing, the devil-like tail slicing the air behind him. His arms were crossed, the protruding spikes jutting from his shoulders failing to block his gleaming, almost----almost mirthful eyes. A sardonic, caustic laugh, filled with vengeful satisfaction at the glaring red brand emblazoned on Giovanni's pitch-black hide.  
  
There on the reptile's black arm were printed four letters, the third under the first, the fourth under the second, the last wisps of smoke still trickling out of the conspicuous brand. Zero-X stared at it overwhelmed with shame, and the shocked remarks of his human subordinate, which at this time, he was feeling below, and his hoarse questions barely registered in his mind. All he could think about was this rediscovered shame..this..this brand..sinking him down to the sublevels of inhumanity. He gazed at this new source of torment that had been literally carved into his arm with that iron rod. It was still burning...it would be for a while, and still physically agonizing. He passed his tongue over the brand, burning it for all of his trouble. He grasped it with his claws, as if that would soothe the burn. His clumsy, undexterous grip made it worse. And then there was the boy. If he couldn't exact physical vengeance, he could at least kill his pride.  
  
H O J O, Gemini spelled out with some difficulty, and he put a claw on the crown of his head, the effort of reading sending sharp aches through it. What was that? He didn't try and think about it further, for the pain was diluted from this gratifying sight, and he soothed his own swelling ball of pain by salting this wound.  
  
That's a long way to fall, Gio.  
  
I have fallen from high enough already, boy. For the time being, I do not believe I can sink any lower.  
  
Don't be so sure. With freak in charge there, he can do a lot more. His growl had a cynical note, and his red eyes slid towards the man bent over the panel, again, activating something or other..but he was enjoying this too much to identify the approaching danger. It looks good on you, though. Better than that ugly orange suit. There was no audible reaction. So, did it HURT? A defeated growl that barely escalated in volume when the wretched hooks came upon his massive body again. Except now, the purpose was different. Huh, Gio? Did it? His vampiric teeth showed as he grinned: one of the hooks buried into the fresh brand, a tremendous roar of pain imminent. Deep in the fragments of Brock's soul something told him that this was wrong, but the want of vengeance in even the most ineffectual form engulfed and posessed him. Though, his dagger-like question was anything but. Now who's "inferior?"  
  
The upturned grin flipped as Butch shot him a warning.  
  
"Hey kid, watch youh back." He had his brown eyes fixated on the man and the controls, and though the liquid hindered his sight, he could see the outline of a PokéBall steadily making its way through one of the connective tubes that strung the ceiling towards the cube. But it was too late.  
  
Wha?  
  
The PokéBall dropped in a predetermined direction, and the unsuspecting mutant seemed to dissolve as it was pulled back into the hated red-and-white orb. The metallic sphere disappeared from the cube, forced through the tubes towards the fifth cell. He found himself in yet another prison, in the study cell that stood alongside his nemesis'. He gazed into the shame-clouded face of the fallen Devil. But the hate-laden glare faded into one of frantic desperation as the wires descended upon him, striking at him like cobras woken in their nest, and he dodging, fighting, struggling against the inevitable, until the hooks penetrated his body, and the demon was suspended in the transparent liqiud like the rest.  
  
The tone of Hojo's statement was falsely apologetic through an unchanging expression and feigned empathy.  
  
"It is a shame to take you away from your solitude, Gemini, but the design of that study cell is not conducive to the procedure." The desperate demon darted this way and that, yanked and pulled by the twisting constrictions, his eyes tearing up again at the forced absence of Suzie. Why couldn't he hold her corpse for Christ's sakes?! It was useless and her dead face was maddening, but it was loads more comfort than being next to HIM. He roared almost insanely, red eyes glowing with want, desire, for the least that anyone could do for him. "Hm.....I imagine you are disturbed... but why---ah..." He cast a glance at the tube and summoned the...Brock squinted through the liquid gloom....the crane. If there was still logic left in him, it told him that if the crane brought her out of the freezer, that........  
  
NO............  
  
"Pity you can't keep your acquaintance; those chemicals act as a catalyst for decomposition."  
  
SUZIE.....No...don't TAKE HER AWAY!!!  
  
Brock exploded into a flood of tears, clamping his claws over his red eyes, made more so with the tears, that flowed into the liquid. Because of his need for vengeance, he let his guard down....he could have stayed with her a bit longer.....but no..she was being taken again from him, back into that cold freezer. At that moment he knew that he would never see her again. This time, he had no one else to blame but his own self.  
  
"Let us begin, shall we?" Hojo bowed his head, his eyes moving fast over the buttons and knobs and switches and levers, the boggling assortment of machinery that dictated the mutants' destiny in fatalistic tone. He took the blood-red antidote, failing to note Butch's gaping shock, so preoccupied he was, distant from everything in the lab except these chemicals, totally and completely absorbed in them as if the mixture was God. He took a measurement, recorded it, and finally returned his attentions to the controls. He poured the liquid into a receptacle adjoining the controls, the liquid racing through the connective tubes in pulsating streams that entered the study cells, displacing the bluish liquid, changing it to the hue of human blood.  
  
Butch watched from inside the tube, both palms pressing on the glass wall. He grunted in distrust of the whole thing. You didn't get nothing for nothing.  
  
"Both processes are simple," he explained to no one in particular. "Whether it is injection or immersion, as you are experiencing currently--" He nodded to all but the human, who stared apprehensive at thie promise of humanity. Stare in absolute horror at what was happening to Cass, the boss, and even..the kid.. "---the end result is the same. A complete reversion...or in many cases, transformation. Of course it varies from subject to subject. It depends how how..." He stressed the word. ".....different...the Pokémon is from the human."  
  
The transformations that followed barely perturbed the scientist. They were a far cry from such changes that involved a simple shrinking or growing or losing appendages, or for that matter, Pokémon evolution, but formed a grotesque mutation. The hideous transformation from human to Pokémon only aggrandized with the opposite.  
  
Hojo strayed away from the controls, the hideous process carrying itself out. He unclasped his hands and put one finger under his chin and asked the writhing figures,  
  
."Isn't it amazing how antidotes were developed to alleviate pain, but......this doubles, perhaps triples it....?"  
  
Internally, it was chaos. Skulls caved in to protect a smaller brain, and cracked down the middle to accomodate a larger one. The blood in their veins and arteries and capillaries changed its hue from black, and in the bat/fox's case, grey, back to the oxygen-rich scarlet, squeezing through shrunk blood vessels, in a mad panic to reach the vital red heart. Muscles shrank, bones remolded like clay, causing the muscles to collapse. The nerves might as well have been fried: this was pushing the body's--human or Pokémon-- too far.  
  
Butch wasn't a genius, but he wasn't brainless. He shouted over the screams, the unearthly pleas for mercy,  
  
"Cut it out, freak, you'he 'gonna kill 'em! They'll be dead befohe they'he human!!!"  
  
"Hm.....there is a possibility..." he answered.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YA?" he rasped with livid brown flames in his eyes, losing his cool-headedness as the witness to this.... The brown globes blazed with growing fear...they rolled across his eyes feverishly, the molding dark forms burning forever in his memory. "They'he gonna die------"  
  
"Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time..." His eyes narrowed and cloesd in annoyance. "I will let nature take its course. If in fact the procedure is defective, there are corrective methods."  
  
"Cass..." Butch stared to his left with the vaguest tear brimming in his left eye. The only time he cried in his whole underhanded career as an elite Rocket...not for a bungled heist or a lost opportunity at making money or grabbing a rare Pokémon, but for his partner?  
  
The antidote was doing what it was made for....He could see hands in the place of paws, nails instead of claws, canines instead of fangs, ears on the side of her head instead of at the top, and slowly, agonizingly so, eyes were appearing, those violet eyes so full of devious cunning and the cruel demeanor of the femme fatale that she was. But now that demeanor was in pain...pure, raw, pain...a pain that could become lethal at any point during this merciless process from monster to human....and he couldn't do a thing about it..not one damn thing.  
  
Same with the others.  
  
"Ninety percent complete...all subjects seem to be stable..."  
  
What would happen would happen. He crossed his quivering fingers and waited.  
  
The screams now, were almost unfamiliar...the abnormailty.....seemed normal. He shook his head and blinked. They looked almost completely human, now, except for a few tufts of fur or a scale here or there, but within minutes those were gone as well.....and...if he didn't know the truth, the awful, sick truth, he wouldn't know that they were Pokémon.  
  
It was the flawless mask that the demons hide behind to conceal their identity. But as it was, it was only a partial facade, The...humans' mentality hadn't returned. Brock caught himself growling... until he found he could talk.  
  
"Is it a dream?" he asked himself, looking at his palms and turning them over, normal, olive skin greeting his normal, squinted eyes. The fact that it was covered in scars didn't bother him for the moment. It was his own, human flesh. He was still.....bald, but the head wasn't scaled. He felt all over his body, touching nothing but smooth, though hardy flesh, the kind that wouldn't scare the living crap out of people...people..he was a person... he was human..."I'm...I'm me...I'm Brock. I'm not Gemini!" he shouted out loud in unimaginable joy, unshadowed by the suspicious frown Butch wore, but that, too, was eliminated when he saw Cassidy. And Cassidy saw him.  
  
"B---Butch!!!" she cried, pressing her pale, soft face against the walls of the prison that seemed so insignificant.  
  
Giovanni seemed to be the only one not rejoicing. In fact, he was perturbed. He looked over his left arm. The brand had carried over from his Pokémon state, which he had a sickening feeling it would. But more than that, Gemini..Brock had read it. It must have consisted of letters, but these letters wern't registering...was it possible that he couldn't--? No.....the liquid must be blurring his vision...that must be the reason.  
  
For the rest of the subjects, the moment was short lived. Without touching the controls, Brock felt that abominable..headache. He groaned, his head falling foward clasped by his hands.  
  
"No....not now!!!!" He glowered at Hojo, who wasn't at the control panel."Huh? Why're we changing back?!" the tan boy yelled, feeling the pain of the transformation creeping up his spine like serpents of ice.  
  
"Fortunately......" He told the "humans" floating in the tube, already experiencing the first pains of a reversal of the process, in their minds, knowing their humanity was about to slip away before any physical changes happened, that first horror so ingrained into their memory. "Because the chemicals that began your transformation in the first place were introduced into your system, the human state is very....unstable."  
  
The mutation was more rapid, but no less painful. As the pain shot through Gemini's human system, and did the same to the others, the universal protest rang clear in his tortured cry:  
  
"No.....NO........I'm not going back!!! GRIHM NOTRGH GROHHGINGRR BAARGHK!!!!!"  
  
Then......  
  
The door and a good section of the lab wall exploded into metal shards. Fresh from Barret's Restore Materia, the three AVALANCHE members burst into the laboratory, their weapons drawn. They were expecting a head-on assault from the Shin-Ra, but found something contrary to what they expected. Upon seeing the madman, Cid gaped ahead perplexed with his cigarette half-falling out of his mouth..  
  
"How the fuck did psycho-ward get here?!" the pilot yelled to his comrades. Red tensed again and trained his yellow eye on the man, wary of his presence. They hadn't discovered how dangerous he was until they were almost dead from the poison in his----- he didn't want to think about it right now. The point was, they'd better be the attacking party in this confrontation.  
  
"I don't know, but we need to be careful."  
  
"Shit, fag's DEAD! Did I fucking miss sometthing here?!"  
  
Hojo spoke, his back showing, still turned towards his specimens. AVALANCHE was standing at such an angle that the mutants were barred from their sight. Might as well be...he didn't want these ones to escape like Red XIII. Though he had been aware then that that method of breeding wouldn't be able to work.  
  
"My...such vulgar words..." The trained eye saw him lick his lips. "...Especially for Dr---"  
  
"Shuddup! We're takin' yo' down an' out!"  
  
The scientist was stopped in mid-sentence, Red unimpulsively once again pouncing onto him with identical ferocity. Cid and Barret spread out, attacking the machinery with everything they had. Come hell or high water, they couldn't let Shin-Ra have its way with another whole planet..Explosions shook the lab, fire and shrapnel bursting into all directions. Through the chaos, Hojo crawled out from under Red's inexplicably ineffectual mauling, and slowly stood up, barely fazed. "I warn you, this will prove to be counterproductive to your cause..."  
  
Barret used the last energies of his Fire Materia and engulfed the lab entrance in flames. The chaos became pandemonium as the minor electrical fires were swallowed by the Materia-induced flames, fanning and fueling them, augmenting them until they grew and expanded, broadening their concentration from small pockets of the lab into the entire front wall.  
  
"I think we're getting more than we bargained for," Red remarked. "If we don't think of something fast....."  
  
"Yeah, Beethoven I get the friggin' picture," the gruff pilot answered. This was going to hurt much more than Elena's Firebomb...aw, forget dancing around words: they were gonna get fried. Cid and Red stormed ahead, searching everywhere for a way to put out the fire. But everywhere, there were flames and no water, no ground, nothing they could snuff it out with. Their plan had backfired. Badly. "Shit." Cid gazed up and saw nothing but a solid sheet of flame. Perspiration drenched thorugh his clothes as he and the wolf/dog went where the flames were not and ran like hell. It was there, where Cid stopped and Red kept on going towards the wall.  
  
Holy fucking Christ......  
  
Cid found himself staring at three stampeding freaks and one crazy in his birthday suit heading towards the white wall.. They rushed at him, terrified as he, and he dove out of the way in time to avoid getting flattened and gored at the same time. Cid blinked after them in absolute bewilderment, while Barret jogged out from a thinning gap in the flames and began running, the scorching fire snapping at his broad back. He yelled something about the white wall, and then his sapphire eyes widened in realization: the portal had appeared. Wherever it led to, it was better to brave the unknown than brave death. Cid jumped up, his spear in both gloved hands, and followed at the rear, growing closer to the white portal, where his comrades and the weird freaks had disappeared into....  
  
A dart hit his back. He shook, stunned by the blow, and fell on the floor, his spear clattering to the floor. The steady footfalls of the predator approached his prey, and the hunched shadow loomed over the unconscious pilot. Strange.....he hadn't bothered to extinguish the fire before it escalated. Did he even notice?  
  
He saw the white portal vanish in a dim crackle of light like a small-scale lightning storm, arched an eyebrow, and stopped. Something oddly familiar about that light--- but now was not the time. Staring down into the ashen face of the unconscious pilot, face frozen in pain at the sting of the dart, Hojo greeted with growing relish in his forceless voice,  
  
"Welcome back, Draconis Rex."  
  
He let his stabbing eyes wander around. All of his machines...his lesser specimens..the entire lab had been incinerated by the fire. Well, no matter. He had this one.  
  
A crude, tedious method of transportation would have to be utilized. Grasping the unconscious pilot by his jacket with two hands, he dragged the limp and, to him, heavy body, slowly backing up to an oddly-patterened square in the corner. The fire grew closer, the heat causing him to perspire but not notice, forever oblivious to the obvious crisis, the chaos, so greatly his ambition posessed his mind.  
  
The heel of his shoe touched the square, activating the mechanism inside it, and within seconds of the flames devouring the square, the two men vanished.  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Is there really more to Cid than we think? Will we find out what's with the overly-prophetic Kuja ripoff? ^^;; Is there a reason why Hojo is acting so evil? Where will the portal lead? Will Brock ever grow his hair back? Yes, I know I'm humorless. Sue me. ^^; Stay tuned for chapter 16! 


	16. On the Edge of Despair

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/title and story by DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
A/N: Another month, another chapter. ^^: I now have pretty much this thing roughly planned out to the halfway point, (roughly being the key word), the ending worked out in bits and pieces, and to sum up, I think the whole fic can be fit in less than 50 chapters. Hopefully. OO Anyway, enough of this pointless drivel, on with the fic!  
  
*~*~*  
  
8 Main Street  
  
Vermillion, Kanto 987321  
  
To the esteemed President of Silph Corporation:  
  
In a condensed maxim, reptuation is everything. This company's only defense against public slander and over-zealous individuals is our reputation. When those with rebellious attitudes are disposed of, there is nothing that will prevent the swaying of the masses. All it takes is persuasion and a pinch of muscle. Then the city is in your hand.  
  
Rufus Shin-Ra, President of Shin-Ra Electric Company  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 16: On The Edge of Despair  
  
When Cid woke up the only thing he knew was that he hurt like hke hell. He didn't know why or how, but there was something drawn hard and tight on his neck and the back of his knees and on his shoulders. And he couldn't move.The ugly reality pieced itself together as alarm bells rang out in his head. He was..  
  
Strapped. Cid got that queasy feeling in his stomach. Suddenly he felt like throwing up everything he ate in the past two days. Plus the stomach.  
  
The dank foul air permeated his bare back..waitaminute, bare?! God, so they took his shirt and his gloves. Not even letting have THAT shred of dignity. What, were they gonna dissect him alive? HAAH...not "they". Cid thought with his gaze stiffening harder than the table he was strapped to. There was only ONE man...if his twisted green carcass had the RIGHT to be lumped in with the rest of them normal people.  
  
"Goddamn bastard," growled Cid under his breath that came rougher in his prone state.. Hojo probably put him that way on purpose. To make it uncomfortable as possible. Forget uncomfortable. Painful was more like it. Damn, it hurt down there, too. Why was he HERE, anyway? Sick psycho only experimented on freaks. With something "special" about them. "Special" just another word for "wrong." And except for the cancer in his lungs that the doctors said was supposed to have killed him years ago, there was nothing "wrong" about him.  
  
"Gotta be lookin' to retire real soon, thinkin' I'm one of them freaks," Cid mused while grimacing at the floor. He was positioned so that his head hung off the edge of the table. It took that much more of an effort to move his head, much less looke up. Damn little fuck.. getting so old that he didn't know normal from unormal. Just to think that senile son of a bitch would mistake HIM, Cid Highwind, one of the few Mako and Jenova-free in AVALANCHE, for the thousands of royally screwed-up and over weirdos on this Planet, made the corners of his mouth curve slightly upwards." Ha, that's rich.." Maybe there were chemicals floating around in the air that set him off or maybe it really was that hilarious because of its ridiculousness, but whatever the cause, Cid started laughing and laughing hard. Between hard-taken breaths between laughing he forced out some words. "I.....bet he thinks I got wings---" Laugh. and a tail--" Laugh. "---and was a test-tube baby-" Laugh. "---or some crazy shit like that."  
  
How close to right he was.  
  
"Not quite.."  
  
The laughter died in that instant. Hojo pushed opened the door that bumped lightly against the wall, breaking a mat of cobwebs. He closed the door and locked it with a key in one hand. As he was turned around, a sterilized instrument in Hojo's other hand flashed in Cid's direction, but he couldn't damn well see it because of how he was positioned. But he could hear him. Hell, he could hear him, alright. Slimy oily voice more slick than a used car dealer. Only worse. A beat-up old piece of crap wouldn't hurt you. This old man fucked up Goth-boy in ways he couldn't..wouldn't imagine.  
  
. "However, your self-assesment is rather accurate..." Slowly, dangerously, he moved from one end of the room to another. As he moved towards Cid, his arm and hand appeared, the one that was holding the instrument. NOW Cid could see it. FUCKING SHIT. "..surprising for an intellect of that caliber." He shifted it to his dominant hand, raising it, the limb like a viper rearing back before delivering the deathblow. He began muttering to another person that was not Cid, ignoring that he was even there. "This is the subject's offspring...I was unable to acquire its parents. I suppose what is known about this race will be acquired from studying Draconis Rex."  
  
"Who the fuck're ya talkin' to?!" shouted Cid with a manic and wld tone, his body stiff and immobile but his mind in chaos and his soul in dread. Hojo left him without the explanation the blonde man was dying for, and approached him from the side, linking him to the heart monitor set up near the table. Cid's face flushed violet with rage and curses flew unchecked from his mouth. This did not alarm the scientist. Rather, he was elated by this discovery, and he voiced with a tinge of mirth in his observation,  
  
"Retained vicious temperment.." he muttered through the wave of words that would shame the filthiest of dumps. The scientist turned his attention to a batch of chemicals next to the instrument tray. His spidery fingers were want to grab them, but...no, not yet. There was something yet to be done. "In one treatment with this formula the process would be complete..."  
  
Process. He wasn't joking, was he? He really WAS going to do it.  
  
. "But...recent tests have proved that these chemicals do not realign the vertebrae." The dangerous glow in Hojo's eyes grew lethal as he again lifted the instrument, its sharp edge reflecting the Mako glow. "I'm afraid I'll have to remedy this problem..." Like a dagger, he raised it and traced it across the air level with his eyes, the instrument glimpsing the poor pilot's face locked in total terror.. "..the old- fashioned way.."  
  
He pushed the blade into Cid's flesh and drowned his victim's screams with apathy.  
  
*~*~*  
  
A hand desperately wanting sunlight moved fidgeting from pocket to brow, mopping its owner's head with a handkerchief. He crammed it into his shirt, disgusted with himself for this uneeded alarm. True, his doctor had been prescribing stronger medication for those irritating headaches, and his close friends warned him time and again that he was working too hard on the proposal to use a meager five percent of the company's funds to restoring Midgar, and not enough time thinking about that upcoming vacation. Shin-Ra won't spend a gil on a dump where no more military forces could be extracted, they said to him time and time again. But like a cat waiting for the right time to swipe the meat when the butcher's not looking, Reeve was set on this proposal....though if he knew Rufus' "rule with fear, not money" policy, he knew that his first priorities would be rebuilding the army, not Midgar. He could start counting his blessings if he could squeeze even one percent for the reconstruction. But maybe, he thought, there were other reasons besides military: Reeve was a true Midgarian: he was bound not only to the land by loyalty but also, in a distant, indirect way, its people. Rufus wasn't.  
  
Loyalty...hmph. Reeve knew the story behind this alliance, this merger...Rufus was toying with the old fool, taking advantage of Silph's diminishing profits and the hearing aid of its president.  
  
In name only, they were equals. Beneath the surface was where the reality lay: Shin-Ra owned Silph.  
  
Reeve found himself fidgeting again..that medecine was really wracking his nerves..he searched for something that would soothe...found it. A filled bookshelf with all sorts of texts on both his line of work, some that he had written himself, mostly diagrams that spanned hundreds of pages from which he derived the Midgar model, and heavier books on his favorite topic of leisure.  
  
Running a finger along the shelf, he chose one where an inch-thick layer of dust had accumulated over years of neglect. It was wedged in the back between two he read more frequently, but the sight of it jogged his memory and he opened A Complete Guide to Cats.  
  
Reeve sat down in his office chair and began reading, digesting the subject that his affinity for was made so apparent by Cait Sith. He looked longingly at the rather uninteresting heap of machinery next to the door, aware that arriving to this new location locked the machinery and ultimately cut him off from Cait Sith and Gaia.  
  
The man flipped through the pages of the paperback, obsolete and inaccurate since more research had been done since then, but for Reeve, it tapered this induced anxiety. Besides, his fondness towards cats wasn't a scientific preoccupation. It didn't bother him in the least if one specie had been classified wrong or if a new breed was actually an old breed with different markings.  
  
Diagrams of an anomaly were a different story.  
  
What the hell--? he thought when he turned the page. There were a series of pages that were bound differently than the rest of the book...crudely, rushed with primitive adhesives, as if whoever placed it there was in a turmoil of mind. But the way it had been bound didn't perturb him as much as the diagram of a mix of many different felines, mostly of the wild variety, with the glaring characteristics of a man...A caricature of felinity and humanity intertwined, seamless melding with the boundary between man and beast undetectable. This isn't your ordinary kitty, he thought humorlessly as he flipped to the next page with hesitancy. There, sets of diagrams, the same cat-man from all points of view showing internal organs and the outside form. Above it was scrawled what looked like formulas and notes, the kind of thing that..that..Hojo presented at his lectures---Shaken, he turned the page. Bending his eyes downward he made out the hastily-written script.  
  
"Unlike the other subjects, that must be enhanced with surgical procedures, this subject attains full potential through chemical treatment alone. No doubt that S- 010 had reverted to human form: it was restored to consciousness before I could adminster the final chemicals. The effects are permanent and I can record this gradual change. However, I don't believe I can witness the full process in a lifetime without a sufficient catalyst. Securing him kng enough to administer the chemicals will be the real difficulty. However, the change also can be activated by an adventitious exposure to the formula-----" Reeve paused, closed the book in resentful irritation and put it down on the desk. "How did science research end up in my books?" he asked himself rather grudgingly. If anyone should be retaliating for lack of funds, it should be the Space Exploration Department or his own, not the Science Department. It was until only recently that an excessively large amount of gil was going into Weapons Development alone. Or...it could be someone's idea of a sick practical joke.  
  
Not just anyone's, Reeve thought semi-bitterly as he opened up the book again to that perturbing page. He almost blew us all sky high along with Midgar. Reeve frowned and reached for his handkerchief again, but pulled away. . Why does Rufus keep him on his staff, anyway? He's not any more loyal to Shin-Ra Inc. than I am.  
  
The dark-bearded Shin-Ra executive put the book open-faced on the desk, checked his wristwatch, and reached for a capped bottle at the corner. He unscrewed the cap, retrieved a granola bar from his trouser's pocket, and stuck the medecine in the granola bar, absently observing the diagram of the cat's eye that studied him from the paper. The more he looked at it, the more it bothered him..He turned to a photo of a cat, one whose eyes emanated an unearthly glow when the light struck them the right way. He was no stranger to this, as he'd seen many felines on the one trip to Wutai he took. That alone didn't bother him. But...He cleared his throat, leaned back in his chair, looked at the cat's eyes again, like two golden moons suspended side-by-side. Like a tornado it came to him. Whatever ills the medicine was designed to prevent broke through its defenses, and his head rained sweat and he was shaking all over and he had this godawful headache and it was all because...  
  
.. Because he'd seen that glow..on a human, a man...Before Diamond Weapon, before he came to power.....  
  
Suddenly his phone rang. Reeve collected himself enough to lift it off the reciever and put it to his ear and gave a quick and embarassing reply as the granola bar lodged in his throat, and he choked out a mousy "yes, President," in response to the "piss me off and I'll kill you" type of irritability ringing loudly on the other line. Reeve quickly hung up and sat there, mopping up his flooded head and staring bug-eyed at the phone. It might have been the bad reception, but that last word and a snarl of a bobcat were not that different. He looked again at the book. and turned to the diagrams, each individual finger shaking so hard it took all of his mental faculties to focus and reach that page. Those insinuating images seemed to grin at him with the knowledge of some ugly truth...  
  
Reeve swallowed another tablet before rushing out the door.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The ebony dragon glided on an invisible current of air, beating its wings in time with its pain, mechanically, nothing majestic in this creature that had been revered and feared because of its supremacy. But that was of legend. This was reality. This was a product of the ambitions of men, not the will of nature. The greed of corporate kings spawned this creature, the madness of a disfigured quest for knowledge, these irreversible errors of the proud beast known as humans mothered this broken animal with an indifferent and brutal hand.  
  
Misty held her bad arm with her good one, laughably insignificant in size, a mere grain of dust blowing in the shadow of a mountain.  
  
The agonized creature let out a roar that made the wind tremble and bow, in tenuous command of the elements themselves, or at least one of them. Night was absolute around it; the darkness was king. As Misty followed the black shape, she felt the darkness growing around her, enveloping the ground she half-walked, half-stumbled over, the chains of trees, the shadows themselves, encompassed by the darkness. The Moon hid behind the black curtain. The dragon soared with crushed spirits into the steel sky. Where at that point, it halted in mid-air. A voice came, the hatred directed against itself like many blades dissolved, dripping away to reveal the true form of the black dragon.  
  
Night without day. This is the the gruesome reality of now. Imagine day.....The Moon returned....without night?  
  
"Aghhh!!" Misty screamed as a flood of light cascaded into her open eyes. Her reflexes weren't quick enough, and light as blinding as the Sun invaded her sight, and she fell backwards from its sheer force, that dispersed the blackness and immersed it in white, white light. "What's---going on?" she groaned, clamping both hands over her face, the pain of jerking that arm up minimal compared to this skull-splitting light. "Where'd the dragon go?" At least, in the darkness, she could move, but this light, nothing like the warm sunlight in the morning, but a relentless, brutal ice sun mulitplied and magnified by a thousand, stiffening the muscles, paralyzing the nerves, and numbing the mind. "Wh--what's that?!"  
  
Now the black dragon and its aura of torment was gone: in its place was the spawn of eagle and lion of myth and legend in terrible resplendence, bathed in this pure whte light. Misty couldn't see it turn around, but felt the wind rush past her face as it headed towards her, its thoughts resonating through her mind, a foreign tongue she could neither understand nor wanted to. This day without night approaches. Follow me and the night will end.  
  
Light and shadow displaced the white suns, This unending night. and the Moon again appeared amidst the darkness, . the shadows on the ground and the light from the stars The day will begin with the storm.. manifesting the balance between the contrasting forces of nature. The rain.. Misty teetered unsteadily, When the rain falls they will fall.. the world spinning round and round, The masses will then rise.her location, The rest... what had just happened, Will die. individual shapes registering in her brain, the false illusions of the black dragon----before it all stopped, and dazed, she stumbled again over a root and regained her balance, swaying on unsteady legs in the light of the white griffin. The beacon didn't wait. She followed it using as much speed her humanity lent her..  
  
*~*~*  
  
The agents of Team Rocket were many and one, individuals and a team, separated in thought and action and unified in one soul. Right now that soul was a pulverized remnant of pride and ambition. Every single one of them had been unstoppable: they knew they would beat the odds, conquer the world, take every last free or owned Pokémon for themselves and spread chaos across the lands.  
  
All that was gone. They knew they were powerless. The HQ was the HQ. If it burns, so what? But HOW it burned...how their comrades burned...scorched in the breath of that monster, left them dreamless. The Rockets that were barely daunted left. The vast majority whose pride was a pile of desolate ashes sat, stood, or lay clustered around the remains, a people who discovered their god wasn't immortal.  
  
The team became individuals, lost, wandering individuals, who travelled an path obscured by doubt. It could only grow more doubtful when the night was flooded in day.  
  
The griffin clouded the ruins in white shadow. Terrified Rockets gazed up into the blaze in fearful awe. Some of them clapped their gloved hands over their heads and fell on their knees shivering like an Ekans' rattle, others retreated into their tents, and others unclipped their PokéBalls and got ready to fight the intruder. The boss was gone, Team Rocket was finished, what had they to lose?  
  
But it didn't attack. It glided but didn't dive, leaving a heavenly aura in its wake behind its lion-like tail. It opened its sharp beak and released another cry, this blend of the eagle's call and the lion's bellow parting the clouds which trembled at this manifestation of power this creature posessed. .  
  
Somewhere near the ruins but distanced from the black and purple and grey-clad people directly under this harbringer of a false heaven Ash still lay unconscious. This mobile dawn was far-reaching. It stretched its pale fingers across to the boy, extending itself through the darkenss. The haunting light danced on Ash's eyelids. It lingered only until the weary eyes that had seen so many things in the past few days showed themselves to the darkness.  
  
The call pierced and rattled his ears.  
  
"KKKHHHHHGGGHHHHHRRRRRRRRROOOARRGHHH..."  
  
Follow me and the night will end.  
  
"H--huh.?!" Trying to ignore that his whole body was sore and his arm stung from the clawing and he was hungry enough to eat a Slowking, he listened for the cry again. It didn't come. All there was was the coo of some nocturnal Pidgey and the squeak of Mankey and a really loud, shrill call that sounded an awful lot like..."Misty?"  
  
"Ash!" The shrillness was reduced to a drained pant. The girl came into view jogging away the last bit of her stamina, coming to a tired stop in front of him. From what Ash could see, she hadn't gotten off any better than he had. She was likewise a wreck and tired and upset and confused and...it looked like Brock got to her, too. But somewhere along the way the wound opened and it was bleeding again. Ash sat gaping at the wound, then Misty slapped her palm onto it and pressed, hoping to stop the bleeding. Neither of them were saying anything, but they knew, on the outside and inside, they were hurt.The inside would take longer to heal, but Misty knew, that if they reached Pallet, they could at least fix the outside. "We've got to get going."  
  
Ash nodded and struggled to to stand. His usually unalterable determination broke each time he fell. Somehow his vigor, energy...was all gone. The fourth or fifth time he fell on his rump Misty grabbed his good arm with her good hand, pulled him up, and leaned him over her shoulder. Brathing in deeply trying to catch some of that lost air, she started towards Pallet Town. The griffin...she guessed...would have to wait..  
  
"H--hey, Misty, where're we goin'?!" Ash questioned frantically with voice hoarse from a dry throat. Last time he had something to drink was in the Team Rocket dungeons---tasted nasty, too. But that wasn't what he was worried about.  
  
"Pallet Town so we can---ngh," she grunted as she stared at the bright red streaks on her arm. Too deep...it was no use, just holding a hand on it wouldn't make it stop. If Ash's opened up too they would really be in trouble. "---rest up, then I'm going to," she picked up and put down her feet slightly faster, some of her breath returning, and some of the glisten returning to her dullened eyes as she finally finished what she had to say,"follow that Pokémon!"  
  
The boy's voice was fraught with cracks of worry and concern. He had friends he had left behind. How with the destruction of their enemy's base could he lose those companions?  
  
"But what's gonna happen to Pikachu---and Bayleef and Cyndaquil and Totodile and Noctowl?"  
  
Misty stopped walking, her expression freezing to ice as cold tears formed. They fell silently without sobs, the silence of one mourning for the dead. After a pause she found hard to break, the orange-haired girl poured the truth.  
  
"Ash, don't you think I would've LOOKED for Togepi if it was going to live?"  
  
Another stretch of silence. "So you're sayin'...you think our Pokémon're dead?" the boy asked, his voice growing increasingly more fearful. Misty nodded solemnly. Ash ripped away from Misty's grip, falling on one knee in his failing effort to balance. This wasn't happening..you could feel things in nightmares, right? This was just another nightmare. Soon Pikachu would hit him with a Thunderbolt and he'd be awake and they'd continue their journey together and they would get badges and meet new friends and fight new enemies.....  
  
C'mon, Pikachu. Gimme a Thunderbolt!  
  
Any moment now he'd feel those tingling bolts across his spine. He'd be dizzy from the shock, stars in his eyes, wobbly, close to fainting......  
  
He drew his fist out of the ground and it shook with pain. So this is how it all ended, huh? No encouraging words, no good-byes? To think that it ever was a perfect day. With all his energy, he stood up on one leg and screamed out to the ruins,  
  
. "PIKACHU!!!"  
  
The silence was eternal.  
  
"Come on, Ash," Misty urged more gently than she had in a long time. But Ash would've barely noticed the difference. Eyes flooded in tears he let Misty pull him up and away. The call, that beckoning call of the griffin split the clouds again. She resisted it's compelling command. Their solemn path was towards Pallet.  
  
*~*~*  
  
As the Dodrio crowed at dawn, the Murkrow cawed at dusk.  
  
But it was interrupted. For then, dawn arrived prematurely in all its brutal terror. In unyielding and remorseless light it bathed Murkrow, and it reeled back on its perch of bark, the blinding brilliance driving it off the branch. It plunged from the twig, reacting just in time before it painted the ground in its blood and feathers. Its short wings propelled it through the black heavens, where the light was a minority and the darkness ruled indomitably.  
  
A clawed hand erupted from the sea of white light like the dead reach out of the ground, grasping freedom they are denied in their caskets. Gemini plunged from the portal, landing squarely on his haunches. Like a liberated prisoner he rooted his claws in the dirt and scooped it up in his hands, each grain slipping down the scales and the scars. It was dirt and not metal, the cold, cruel metal of the cube....yes, this was soil. The outdoors. Freedom. And yet..something was horribly, horribly wrong..  
  
Houses. Houses meant humans.  
  
The surrounding land populated with humans was foreign, alien.....forbidden territory. Upon demand of instinct, he reeled back on four legs, shaking in cowardice with his hands over his demonic visage, the point of his fangs visible through the greyish-black curtain. He shouldn't ..shouldn't BE here..he didn't BELONG here....This was where HUMANS lived..wait..he could scent it, the air, the unpaved dirt roads, civilization in the countryside, where young boys' dreams began on a high and hopeful note...  
  
High and hopeful. For aspiring Pokémon TRAINERS.  
  
He drew back further in fear of this civilized human place, curling into almost a ball out of which his twisting tail poked out of. "PRHAGHRRET TROWHGGNG..." he growled a cracked cry of despair. Oh, God, what if someone saw him? Tracey...Professor Oak..Mrs. Ketchum..Christ, they'd LOATHE him..they'd--- they'd---  
  
And who should speak but HIM. In the middle of the portal he'd changed, shedding his monstrous form and taking on this one, no less monstrous in the soul, but HUMAN in physical shape. As proud as before, with his henchman whose confidence was thinner, you could see the rigid shame in her eyes, yet radiating that proud Rocket air as if nothing had happened to sink the battleship. Perhaps it was a facade. But whatever it was, it was masked by human superiority..  
  
"Indeed it is." The beady black eyes connected with the crimson slits of the demon. ." Another supply of blood to last you throughout the night."  
  
That comment might have been matter-of-fact, but Brock could read its undertones. The blaze of Gemini's tortured eyes ignited into torches of the underworld. He elevated himself with one fist in the dirt, fury and menace radiating from his very body in invisible waves of a terrible blackness of the mind.  
  
His threat of a swift death burned in his voice.  
  
I won't miss this time, Gio.  
  
"Take your worst shot, boy," taunted the man, completely bare, that damned brand exposed as well as everything else, caked in sweat and ashen black from the smoke, but the shame a man like him would have felt was masked by his humanity.  
  
With the roar of an enraged Nidoking Gemini shot at Giovanni's throat like a bullet. Seconds away from tearing through the throat, something exploded inside of him. He groaned, fell on his knees, looking up in devestation at the five scratch lines he left on his enemy. What the-?!?!  
  
The finishing blow was never delivered. He sat on his knees, confused and upset as he watched his arm and his hand lose scales, and the claws, the lethal tools of Giovanni's desired demise, blunt into nails he hadn't clipped since before this whole nightmare, but not sharp enough to even make the man bleed...  
  
He doubled over in pain as the malformities of organs changed into normalcy, but at the wrong time...the COMPLETELY wrong time...  
  
He groaned as he fell to the ground, drained from the transformation. He lay in the dirt with revenge kicking him in the face. Any other time he would have given ANYTHING to be human. But at that point, where Giovanni was a man and Brock was a Pokémon, he HAD the upper claw...he would have cut him down...but no..the mutations were controlled by chemicals....Tears of anguish formed in his closed eyes. CHEMICALS..you couldn't rely on or trust. But what was there to trust besides yourself?  
  
"You..you KNEW that was coming...bastard."  
  
That smile that Brock had come to abominate sat plastered on the man's proud face."Unlike you, boy," he replied haughtily, "I am more--- " The vowel was lost on him, and he slackened his normally rigid jaw as the word fell ungraciously out of his mouth.  
  
Fortune would have it that the four red letters on his arm that now defined him were tangled in the corner of his eye.The facade began to peel away as he stared perplexed and befuddled at the letters. He couldn't...read them.  
  
Once Brock deduced this, he wasn't hesitant to tear it right off.  
  
"You're more what?" Brock parted his mouth in a caustic grin. "Human?" At this point Brock gave way to laughter, too manic to be genuine and perhaps a little insane. But it didn't matter right now. He had his nemesis where he wantedhim. He pointed an accusatory finger at the "man" and took a biting stab. "So...the secret's out, huh, Gio? It says HOJO. Didn't get that?" The grin was almost sadistic as he over-pronounced the syllables. "HHHHOOOOOOJJJJJOO." With that he kept verbally kicking him, and with a razor-edged statement, he got him in the balls.  
  
"Just this once, I'm MORE human than you."  
  
In his assaulted brain Giovanni searched for words to counterattack. Cassidy bailed him out. "Ha...that's where you're wrong, kid." The remark oozed rueful bitterness. She tilted her chin down. It was so much more distressing to look at the ground. You could see what crap you were walking in, what was crawling up to bite you---you didn't see those kind of things in the sky. The ground forced her to see reality.  
  
. Strange that she would say this, as she was one of the more confident and anthroprocentric agents. But she and Butch.....Team Rocket.....had their golden age. There was nowhere else to go now.....but down. With a quivering lip, she choked on the truth. "None of us are human anymore."  
  
A margled croak disturbed the melancholy that inevitably followed. Cassidy was like some knife that shaved off a part of his brain and the words with it. A fragile silence swelled between Brock and Giovanni. The tension beneath it cracked through the pause but didn't shatter it. Still, it was only a matter of time before one would challenge the other again. Perhaps next time it wouldn't be with words and perhaps next time it wouldn't be one-sided.  
  
Cassidy bent down eye level with Butch, instinctively wrapping her arms around her chest to cover that area. Another croak stumbled thorugh the air, in so many different chords that she wasn't sure where one began and one ended. For some inexplicable reason, she knew that it was talking to her. But...she wouldn't know what it was..not ever, because he would forget.....all that he'd seen and heard during the night. With the dawn's first beams of light penetrating the walls of night his memories would be effaced. Goddammit...she thought with granitic hatred that lay crushingly on her eyes.. Why did the geezer have to be RIGHT? She veered her head away from the lumpy, deformed face and plugged the double wells set in her eye sockets. So.....she would never know.  
  
It was then she heard a voice. Pleasant. Naive. Saccharine sweet. She still hasn't left Candyland, Cassidy pondered with a cracked smile. But it quickly dropped into a curve. The woman fast approaching wasn't one of them, but an outsider... Pointless as the prattling was, if anyone saw them...bedlam was imminent.  
  
"You can cut the awkward silence, we're going to have company REALLY soon," Cassidy informed her superior.. inferior...which was it? She numbed that thought and tucked it away for later. The human grew closer and her irritating voice grew louder with the shortened distance. Perhaps subconsciously, Cassidy dropped the formalities of "boss" or "sir". "Quick, into the bushes!" she whispered, taking Butch and literally diving into the foliage, a crash of branches and crunch of leaves escaping the detection of the woman.  
  
"What?! Christ.." Brock exhaled a tightened breath. That was..that was.....Ash's mom. He broke for the dense cover of the thick bushes and rolled into it, a few leaves scattering on the shadowed ground. The woman closed the gap. She was coming up over the hill with steady gait and decision in where she was going: straight up. For some inexplicable reason, Giovanni hesitated. His rectangular eyes stretched wide and the tiny pupils dilated in fear...fear that locked him in place. That voice...that sweet, gentle voice.. It floated from the base of the hill, closer, nearer, as she walked up the hill. Still he didn't move. And if she saw him.....in this state, questions would arise. The truth would come out. Burying his indecision, he finally ripped his foot from the ground, ran, and crawled into the foliage, pulling his leg in before the woman reached the spot where they previously had been.  
  
Mrs. Ketchum wasn't her usually cheery self. The cloud of puzzlement and confusion rained worry on her head and quieted her as she stopped. Where was Sam? He hadn't been here for the longest time...he told her he was out at some researcher's convention in Vermillion, but he should've been back by now. It had been too long. She had good reason to worry, considering the events broadcasted on the news...Viridian and Pewter...the horror stories of the survivors.... Tracey hadn't come home either: he had followed Sam, true, that boy went wherever Sam went, but he could call home. Vermillion had no limits to their vid-phones or telephones for that matter.  
  
And why was it so bright over here, particularly at the big white circle a few feet above the middle of the road? One of her eyes closed to block the light and she edged towards the white hole, hearing voices, both rough around the edges, one less refined with the language he used. She stepped up to it, gazing into the intense light, and the two shapes beyond. It wasn't much larger than her, and it was shrinking every minute. A shout echoed through the white hole, and the two shapes came running faster, faster, dashing towards an ever- shrinking light. Mrs. Ketchum moved out of the way just in time.....for a burly toughman with a gun for an arm and a one-eyed dog tumbled through the portal, both layered in thick smoke, as the white sliver sealed itself with a thin flash.  
  
"That was a close one," huffed Red as he turned around to look at the now-empty space. "This gate was open for a long time...but the one we first came through closed--" He raised one of his paws to scratch away a bug. "--like that." He began to sway his muzzle across the perimeter of their surroundings, scouting the area for enemies. "There has to be something keeping these things open." The wolf/lion leaped down the hill then came back. Scents were hitting his nose hard, but none seemed gearing to attack.  
  
Barret didn't say anything. He was unusually quiet. In fact, the whole place was unusually quiet. It would be about now that Cid would be swearing about the Highwind, but....shit...were they short one? He counted in his head that smoke and sweat clung to mercilessly. One, two...two. Well, there was a third one there, but no chick didn't come with them through the portal. The pilot was gone.  
  
"Yo, brotha...Highwind ain't here," Barret exhaled. Red could tell by his comrade's gravelly upset tone put a noticeable break in his usually firm voice. The solid AVALANCHE leader let his fist quake, a mountain succumbing to the shifting of the crustal plates. Finally it crumbled, and he lowered his head somberly. But it was a fleeting emotion. Hot, magma-like anger boiled and erupted from the wounds in the earth and exploded into a fiery rain of curses. .  
  
"Dat fire musta got 'im, goddamnit!" he bellowed with his teeth on edge and his fist in the air. "Death's 'jes waitin' fo' us. First dat girl an' now Highwind." With a blazing fit of fury he crushed the Gaian belief and blew up its remains. "Hell wi' da Lifestream! Dey're dead! And dat ain't gonna help nobody!"  
  
Cid could very well be dead. Red thought it wasn't likely. If Cid got left behind, Hojo was right behind him, a jackal behind its kill. Though he couldn't think for the life of him what Hojo would want with a dirty-mouthed pilot, there was a chance that he was alive...  
  
"If the fire didn't get him," Red stared off into the night with bleak fears taking pictoral shape in his brain. Ugly, gruesome shape. "..Hojo did."  
  
"Dat quack?!" Barret burst out, the rage spiralling into detectable fear, then smashing to the bottom with grim hopelessness in this realization: "He'd be betta off dead."  
  
"Exactly." Red set his forepaws on the edge of the hill, his short claws piercing the top of the dusty incline. He surveyed the houses bunched up together, a far cry from the gargantuan skyscraper in the center of the city. No doubt they were days away from the city. With a defeated sigh the dog came to a bleak conclusion, "It might be too late even if we find out where Shin-Ra is."  
  
It was then that the invisible woman spoke up.  
  
"Shin-Ra?" she repeated with a touch of confusion, but it soon left her: Mrs. Ketchum had especial reason to keep up with the news, not knowing where her boy was constantly, having to worry about him lest he end up in some danger. It was no surprise, then, that she knew about Silph's fateful decision.. "Oh, you mean that company that merged with Silph?"  
  
"You know where it is?" Red inquired evenly, voice lined with the most minute speck of hope. The genial woman nodded, and she smiled thinly, though the untrained eye would percieve it as a ditzy, flighty smile.  
  
"Why yes, it's in Vermillion City, but--" The fake show of sunshine melted and fell with the expression of doubt and worry that now darkened her face, and she crossed her arms over her breast, flattening the pink shirt she perenially wore. Her tone was laced with motherly concern that was not unfounded. "I don't know why you would want to travel at this time of night."  
  
"Yo hun, dat ain't none a yo' business!" Barret tried to push her away, but the insistence in Mrs. Ketchum's voice was hard to get rid of, and she answered in indignance,  
  
"Hmph..you DID say you needed directions. I insist you stay the night." What?! Cid's a goner for sure. "Besides, I'm not letting you go ANYWHERE with that burn." Unfolding her arms she reached out with her hand and had her palm on the violently protesting man's shoulder. She squeezed a big bunch of flesh in both palms and started to lead him into the house. Somehow, Barret's iron muscles changed into jelly and turning purple from humiliation, he let himself be walked. Red followed them into the welcoming light, figuring it wouldn't be wise for him to depart without Barret. It wasn't in his character to leave a friend in need, especially at the mercy of a stranger. And other than that, he could use a rest, too.  
  
A heavy thud came from behind the house.  
  
May stumbled by, drooping, limping, falling, bleeding, with the words of the angel heavy and resonating in her mind. All was normal, the ground was still ground, the houses were still houses, the bushes were still bushes and the trees were still trees, and the sky... Her face fell, her lower lip trembled. The sky...was still engulfed by darkness...but.. She took a step back, rubbed the murkiness from her eyes, and beheld......a white, heavenly light dim but present on the horizon. Day was approaching. The angel would return.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Persian's blackened paws sank into the earth, forming a staggered trail that wound serpentine through the hard-packed dirt. It stumbled slump- shouldered across the rough terrain: the scattered stones cut the padding on its paws and made blood leak out of them in globules. It dragged its tail, it shuffled its gait, it walked brokenly amongst the shadows. It could pick up no scent: its sense of smell all but eliminated by a luxurious lifestyle. It searched unguided, unsure of where it was going, knowing only by an irrevocable instinct that its master was out there and that it must find him.  
  
Behind it, the one being that once couldn't stand the sight of its evolution followed it tirelessly. Even further behind, an irritable Jessie and an exhausted James followed them, more out of obligation than choice. With the mind-blowing events etched permanently in their memory, there was no way they were staying alone, out in the open, colorful targets for any other freak that lurked in the shadows. Their best bet was to stick with Meowth and Persian.  
  
But they didn't know how long they could keep it up.  
  
"Meowth," Jessie began with a fake placid tone that rose to indignance and disgust, "We're following a BLIND cat!!! How is THAT going to help us find the boss?!?!"  
  
The cat answered with his gaze fixed on the other feline, "Persian sticks ta da boss like glue." Meowth winked. "'Sides, he ain't gonna make it solo. Jas lookat 'im!!" Meowth turned to his comrades, pointing out the sorry state of Persian. In their own worn-out condition, the humans could find only a tinge of pity for it, and they collectively groaned as the smaller cat justified himself. "Meowth godda make sure he don't get hurt no more," he concluded dutifully, clenching a paw with a serious look on his face. And then he marched on. James whimpered, sighed, and bowed his head, his blue-violet hair following its movement. The tone in hs voice was listless and yearned for rest.  
  
"I miss when they didn't like each other."  
  
The other member of their team appeared, breaking through the two halves of Jessie's PokéBall and from a white mass of light formed a light-colored blob with not much more shape to it. Its bent arm was at its head, saluting anything and everything in its hoarse, scratchy cry,  
  
"Wobbbbb--uffffet!!!!!!"  
  
Jessie glared murder at the squinty-eyed blob.  
  
"Get BACK in your ball------"  
  
Flash. Pain.  
  
"WOB?"  
  
Jessie, now fed up, stopped dragging herself along, stood, and detatched Wobbufet's PokéBall. She threw it with more force than usual, but Wobbufet ducked the incoming object, screamed, and waddled away from Jessie and James with both hands over its squinted eyes. The sounds of his partners' screaming halted Meowth for a secnd and he turned his oval head back to see the humans chasing it down..  
  
"Wobbufet, come back!!!" James implored.  
  
"Get BACK HERE!!" Jessie commanded, magma seeming to bubble in her dark azure eyes. She was already out of breath, and the run that slowed to a jog and to a walk wasn't getting her any closer to the fleeing blob. Frustrated, she flung her PokéBall half the distance that she had thrown it earlier, which whizzed through the shadows and, barely reaching its target, bounced onto the back of it's head. It was soon back in the ball, and Jessie retrieved it, glaring at it in all her fury. James tilted his head while gasping for new air and asked between pants,  
  
"I wonder what would---make Wobbufet run-----off like that...it's never done that before..."  
  
Jessie growled in agitation as the rage cooled to anger. "It's acting the same way it always does!!" She angrily pocketed the Ball and grit her teeth, irritation creasing her forehead. "Brainless and-----"  
  
Jessie's rant was cut short when a sliver of white light rent the sky, turning night into day. "Arghhhhh!!" she screamed, falling onto the ground hard on her back. Up ahead, Meowth saw the light, too. Shiny..what was that?.He turned his paw in the other direction, drawn to the light.  
  
"You-----you were saying?" James asked, shielding his eyes with both hands and an arm. "No wonder Wobbufet ran away...it doesn't like light." .The wound in the sky opened and widened. The shine was scatching to the retinas..it burned so bright they curled their heads against their chest, but their eyes were penetrated there as well. The sun if it rose at night.....  
  
But this wasn't the sun. As they neared closer to it it began to pull them. An invisible suction swallowing them. James grabbed onto the ground onto some stray tufts of grass as he felt the gravity of the light pulling onto him. He screamed. Jessie grasped onto his wrist but felt herself being sucked in, too.. Persian slipped into it without knowing what was happening, Meowth falling it near-willingly. All throughout this, no dread mechanical noise, no violent winds, no grim hand reaching out to grasp them from within the light. Only this white hole in the sky, acting like a black hole, pulling, yanking, ripping them away from the grass blades that began to get pulled as well. They could only shriek in terror.....as they were crammed through the gate to that other world...  
  
Gaia.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Persian squirmed under the fall of rain it found itself under. The drops fell heavy on its ratty fur, chilling its bones and making it call for the master It stood up in something wet and squishy, Meowth smashed under its bedraggled paw. It stumbled off of the tiny cat, who in turn peeled himself off of Jessie and James and landed in the mud..the mud? Meowth lifted a hind paw out of the mud, taking a wet chunk of it with his paw with a gross sucking noise. He cringed at it in distaste and looked up. No trees. Raining. Raining hard. While Meowth observed the lack of trees and the bad weather, James crawled out from under Jessie, who stood up soon after, and inquired amidst shivers and sneezes,  
  
"Meowth..where are we?"  
  
"Dunno, but..." The residue of the white hole scurried across the rain-plagued sky. He pointed a drenched paw at it and stated, "I'd say dat white ting has sumting ta do wit it." By now the only source of light was the late lightning that streaked across the blackness, illuminating the surroundings even if it was only for a split second. A sprawling field. During a lightning storm. And lean brown forms growling in the distance. In the breaks in the thunder, Persian's ears picked up the loud growling. Something wasn't right.  
  
"Mreoww..." Did you hear that?  
  
"Wha?"  
  
A primal snarl, a blur of flying teeth and claws that bounded in front of them, and James sealed his mouth, too scared to even whimper.The creature rushed at them with a fury they hadn't seen before, with the mad rage of one whose territory has been invaded. "EEEEEE!!!!!" James screamed as he dove to avoid a swift leap and a clash of teeth. He had his hands over the top of his head, shivering in terror. "Lets get out of here!"  
  
"Don't be a baby!!" his partner growled, enlargening one of her PokéBalls amidst a bolt of lightning that carved faults in the heavens. The deluge clattering on the metal PokéBall, Jessie flung it, her loud shout colliding with a quaking thunder. "Arbok, pulverize this persistent pup!!!"  
  
The Ball whizzed by the snarling animal's head, and it dove for the creature that emerged out of the Ball, menacing, with arched back and jaws open, it hissed at the smaller, but swifter wolf. "Arbok, Bi---" Arbok lunged, but the wolf rammed its full body weight into Arbok's midsection, and it bashed onto the rolling grass as the beast lunged for its tail, clamping its teeth onto the limb with unshakable tightness. "Arbok?!" The cobra hissed in fright and pain, and the Ball bounced off its hide and pulled Arbok in, leaving the wolf gnawing on air.  
  
"Jessie...!!!!!" James whimpered. Jessie gave in with a frustrated growl and they bolted off. The animal's eyes flared an augmented rage, and it charged for Meowth, who sped off like the lightning bolt that broke the clouds at that instant away from the snapping teeth.  
  
In one of those random glances to see what blood-stopping horror was behind you, Meowth looked back to see Persian: they had left it behind.  
  
"WAAAH!" The rain fell in lead torrents as he sped through the mud, hearing the wolf's breathing behind him. The mud swirled into his face as he ran, obscuring his view of the dirty cream-hued feline sitting there, oblivious to everything but the rain. Thunder cut the air and spurred him on faster. Relieved he felt his paws grasp Persian's leg, pulling the blind and near-lame cat out of the trap of the pointed fangs, and ran like hell, not caring that the wolf was no longer in pursuit of them, not caring that it was standing dormant, raising its soaked muzzle to the black heavens, loosing an aggressive howl from the depths of its throat, not caring that he should be running twenty times faster than he was: the whole pack had them in their sights.  
  
It wasn't long before a good twenty gleaming fury-engulfed eyes stared at them throughout the dark sky. Lightning illuminated their lupine faces for a brief split second, shedding light on that one countenance of ferocity. They closed in from behind, the faster ones bounding ahead to overtake these invaders from the sides.  
  
They happened to be the alpha of the pack, the strongest, fiercest, and deadliest of their clan. Within minutes they had caught up to Jessie and James, snarling like demons, and the rest, howling at the crashing thunder, closing in on the intruders. The terrified Rockets ran faster than they ever had before, forgetting that Meowth was far behind them, unmindful that they were human and could only run so far without getting tired, and unaware...they were headed towards Nibelheim. Which at that point, the wolves stopped. Meowth kept running, but slowed down when he heard the howling no longer. The alpha prowled feet away from the humans, then planted its paws in the mud, stared into the blurry horizon ahead, gave a compromising growl, as if honoring ancient laws of boundary and territory, and slinked off, the rest of its pack dashing off behind it.  
  
Jessie and James stared at each other questioningly, then looked back at the last of the brown shapes dissolving into the dark brown-green fields that they had just crossed. Meowth came trudging in back of them, letting go of Persian's leg and panting in exhaustion.  
  
"Wondah..what made em...take off?"  
  
"Mreowww..." Who knows...  
  
Day and night alternated as lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The Rockets found themselves in the presence of that cursed town, where you couldn't trust what you saw and where blood of the past still lay splattered on the floor, this wretched place that lay in the shadow of remorseless and unrepented sins.  
  
"What is this place, Jessie?" James asked, shivering at the force of a steady north wind passing through the gate at which they stood. "It doesn't look anything like home.." he murmured, the barely distinguishable shapes melding together in one inscrutable blob.  
  
"It looks like-----"  
  
They ventured through the gate, walking under the arch. That fateful arch. Where certain men were led to their doom. They could turn back at the arch. It was a deadly mistake to enter Nibelheim. But they didn't know. "A town?" James looked up and blijnked. Indeed, there was a town, with slanted roofs which the rain pounded on mercilessly which cascaded into the gutters. The window panes rattled violently with the wind and the deserted town square radiated a negative aura.  
  
The four Rockets wandered into the square, the raindrops hammering them relentlessly. If this was a town, they could find shelter. And what better shelter to seek, than that big mansion at the north of town?  
  
It wasn't exactly inviting. There was one light that barely penetrated the sheets and sheets of water. The rest of the house was as pitch black as the sky when the lightning was dormant. It looked old and creaky and even a little...haunted. They stood out shivering, debating amongst themselves whether to go in or not. But as the rain was beginning to soak through the skin into the marrow in the bone, inside in this weather was better than outside.  
  
They entered, drenched, torrents of water following them in before the weight of the door pulled it shut behind them. They didn't mind, though. It wasn't warm...in fact, it was damp and cold, but the rain wasn't pounding them. Besides, there was a light that flickered every now and then. Someone must have been here.  
  
Their waterlogged boots squeaked as they dripped trails of water across the room, admiring the old furnishings, elaborate though layered in dust and cobwebs from disuse and neglect. Meowth was the first to speak.  
  
"Dis stuff looks like it's worth a lodda money!" the cat exclaimed, wringing out his tail on the floor and scratching the cobwebs away from the banister. It was hard business, there was layer upon layer and he had to use his claws to rip through them, leaving the sticky webs wrapped around the digits of his paw. He was about to get a good look at it when something brushed against his leg. "WAAH!" he screamed, falling off the banister onto his back. "What was dat?!" He turned around in time to see James' face shade a freaked-out purple, and he pointed a shivering finger at Meowth.  
  
"D-d-d-don't l-loook n-now, M-M-m-eowth..." he whimpered, Jessie was likewise shivering. If both of them were scared there MUST be something there..slowly, fearfully, he turned his blue eyes towards a balloon-shaped orange grin. Wait...not just one. Two, three, four, five.....Meowth felt his bones liquify. Sliding towards Persian, he kept his eyes on the multiplying monsters, popping out of the shadows and surrounding them from all posible sides. He squeezed his grip around Persian's limp tail, and yanked it. The cat gave an ugly screech, and the three of them screamed through the bloated mass of orange, blowing through them with little difficulty but attracting not only the ones on the lower floor, but the creatures on the upper floor. They hurdled towards them in their swelling numbers, spraying this glowing gas in their direction which by a miracle they evaded. They shot down the hallway and through the bedroom, the blood and dirt on the creaking floor going unnoticed through their clamor. In front of them the massive shadow of the mosnters loomed impending and inescapable on the opposite wall. It wasn't long before they reached a corner. Dead end. Dead men.  
  
The Rockets cowered smashed against the dusty wall, clinging to each other in one pitiful mass. Jessie clasping James, James latching onto Jessie, Meowth holding Persian, and Persian..it sat there not knowing what was happening, ignorant of the certain death that had trapped them where they couldn't run.  
  
Its search for the master was becoming fruitless. They had gone all this way and it couldn't sense him anywhere. Not that it would be able to if he wasn't right in front of it, because of its poor sense of smell, but.even so...It was growing hopeless. Immersed in its self-pity, it released an ungodly screech.  
  
The noise warped the very air. The Rockets forgot they were terrified and covered their ears with their hands, screaming with pain. The awful sound spread amongst the monsters. Their hidden ears writhed and crumbled under the blast, slowly being driven away by the intolerable screech. The creatures floated back into the shadows, some of them backing against the bookcase in the corner. The force of their weight activated a mechanism that lifted up the bookcase with a slam, and as the weakened creatures retreated into the obscurity of darkness, another darkness presented itself in front of them. Not eager to run into the grinning balloons that would be upon them swifter in retaliation, they with ringing ears but acquiring a deal of respect for the other feline, they penetrated the blackness. They tread carefully, not wanting to disturb the perpetual night. Now they noticed the dirt and blood trail. It grew darker and blacker with the lengthening shadows. They had to watch their footing with more attention as they descended: a swrong step met death. They hugged the wall and edged foward on the stairs, inching farther and deeper into the unknown depths.  
  
Jessie found the nerve to speak when they reached the bottom. She felt the wall. Rocky, dark, dank, full of bats that flitted past them with hungry eyes. She walked a little on ahead.  
  
"What would a cave be doing in a basement--?" With the next step Jessie stopped dead cold. There were noises, shouts, screams. Too far away to hear them she coudln't tell if it was a person's or a monster's. All she knew was that it was loud. They followed the rocky wall and stopped at a corner. There they couldn't hear much: it was muffled by the metallic door from which a weak light filtered through the tiny rectangle of a window set in the door. As they approached it, they pulled back behind the rock wall with the animal-like, though clearly human voice that cried behind the door.  
  
"GET THE FUCK AWAY.......YA AIN'T TOUCHIN' ME NO MORE, YA HEAR ME?!?"  
  
A pause, an extended silence, then Meowth heard Jessie's sharp voice beckon him to move.  
  
"Meowth, go listen in!"  
  
"What da--?!!"  
  
She clapped her gloved hand on the cat's mouth while he swiped without result at the human. "Get in there!!!" she hissed. She tossed him as if he were a ball at the door, and he shook his head, shook off the dust, and with a scowl aimed at both of them, he climbed to the doorknob and peered inside, stealth and secrecy serving as his guide. Persian slowly got off his haunches and walked past Jessie and James, and it reared up and rested its paws on the door, meowing and scratching. Meowth lifted one "finger" of his paw to his mouth, which quieted Persian, and he peered inside. His large blue eyes pressed against the window and saw something straight out of those sci-fi/horror flicks: racks of various equipment he didn't know the names but could guess the purpose well enough, giant tubes pushed into a corner filled with glowing liquid, the usually dormant straps of the table tightly strapped around the poor thing that was lying on it, with his back in a painful-looking arc, like he got back surgery except it was to bend the spine and not straighten it. "I'd hate to be dat guy," he whispered, following the whole thing with his eyes, watching the mad doctor that was sicker than his patient.  
  
The aforementioned was standing, facing the bookshelves, with an instrument held vertically betewen forefinger and thumb. Inside, a liquid bubbled and frothed. The man on the table couldn't see what was behind it, but Meowth could see the liquid clear as day. The other man spoke.  
  
"Intriguing...that this chemical itself..merely applied to the skin... will complete the process...."  
  
The pained groans, shouts, threats...those were nothing but background noises. What he'd come to expect in this...occupation. He slid the test tube in its hole in the block that sat near the instrument tray, and he stared at the anguished form of his victim.  
  
"..But it has no affect on the blood..." He stared at the floor, the blood, the old blood, the new blood, and felt his mind drifting....away... Hm? He overcame the mometary distraction and lifted two syringes from the rack. Cid snapped his head sideways, the stark pain on his face overshadowed by a resharpened terror. Holy..shit..needles..... One was empty and one was filled with a gold-hued liquid. Yes, there were safter methods...but those would take far too long. He approached the pilot, struggling against the straps, which to his surprise, Hojo had to tigthen. Strange...he had underestimated hte pilot's strength and resilience. But he wouldn't escape.....not before the process was completed. For that was Hojo's unspoken policy: Enter a man and exit a monster. Why should Draconis Rex be an exception?  
  
He found the point on the man's arm, and started to drain the red blood and inject the other fluid in equal amounts. Risky..imperfect.....deadly to the subject, but he was confident---perhaps too confident, in his accuracy.  
  
Cid cried out as he felt ice of the Gaea Cliffs slide through his arteries, the shock of it hitting his heart showing up as erratic peaks on the heart monitor, but for Cid, torture by Satan himself.  
  
The other man was nearing the acme of the procedure, and he took the tube of liquid in his hand, the manic screams reaching a frightful climax as he stood directly over him, the drop of liquid trembling at the lip of the tube as he held it at a right angle. Cid strained every muscle in his neck to find out what the hell was being done to him, failing utterly. He let his chin drop and heard the chilling voice of the madman reach his burning ears. "Now...what sort of majesty and grandeur lies in this vulgar human?" Hojo inquired the liquid, turning the tube upside-down.  
  
"Jesus CHRIST.....make it stop.....make it fucking STOP......" the pilot groaned as the stream of liquid trickled down his now-arched back.. The junk he poured on him...it was being absorbed through his rough skin, seeping into the nerves and muscles, his skull, into his brain...Holy fuck, he felt as if he was getting TORN APART--- or at the very LEAST, something was stretching his limbs, straining, PULLING the muscles of his arms and legs to make things larger than they were supposed to be. No amount of tongue lashing he gave Shera could equal this physical punishment. GOD...it HURT SO BAD..... "GODDAMN IT.....Why do ya fucking do this to---to----PEOPLE?!"  
  
"Why?" he repeated thoughtfully. "You and many...many others have been chosen to participate in this single experiment with this purpose: to perhaps divert humans from their selfish desires, to integrate them with the rest of the animal---and plant kingdoms...monera, fungi, and protists possibly when we develop the technology.." He raised a finger to his glasses and pushed the lense up his face. He stared the strapped man down, disdain and a contrasting elated disappointment hanging off the tone in his deadly voice. "Ah...but you comprehend only the pain..."  
  
"I COMPREHEND, alright...." Cid repeated acridly with the rough growl of a beast beginning to overtake his gruff, human voice. "that you're a REAL SICK FUCK.". Hojo didn't seem to hear, pacing around the laboratory with his steel gaze on Cid. The change was slow to happen. Perhaps it was the systems of the subject fighting the change, resisting. It would all be futile in the end. Though he didn't succumb to the chemicals immediately, each individual skin cell seeming to combat this foreign invasion of chemicals, he had perfected them with his own hand: they could not fail.  
  
Unhindered pain wracked the pilot's body, immobile under the tightened straps, Hojo observing every change and recording it in the dark hemispheres of his brain, noticing everything.....except the pain of the subject. And all the while Cid stopped scremaing long enough to look his torturer in the eyes and threaten him with a voice that was steadily becoming less and less recognizable. "One day you're gonna be on this same table.." It started on his hands, first, the part he'd always kept covered with gloves. "...screamin' your throat out, beggin' for the pain to go away," At the base of his fingers a sapphire dot appeared, eliminating the burnt peach pigment. "---and that one frick that's sicker than you's gonna screw ya up so damn good so even YOU don't know who ya are.." Another skin cell succumbed to the chemicals. All the while, Meowth watched, wide-eyed in silent fear. The change went quicker for him, watching it from afar and not living through it, but not quick enough. Ironic that this little cat devoted to theft and scams to further his own position in life would emphathize with someone he didn't even know. But it would take no heart to not feel an iota of pity.  
  
The hours wore on. The change slowed with every hour. Meowth kept his eyes open the entire time, watching, wanting to avert his gaze, but found his eyes nailed. Slowly, slowly, the silver-sapphire color consumed one quarter of the hand, then one half, then three quarters, then the whole hand. Meowth's eyes began to redden from the lack of sleep, and still were as wide as if someone had put miniature jacks between his eyelids. Then the other man moved in front of the victim, walling off his view of the horror. In disorientation from what he'd witnessed, and from sleep deprivation, he slipped off the doorknob, fell onto Persian's slumped back, and grasped it with his paws, and turned the brass knob to get a better look.....  
  
"Meowth, what are you doing?!" Jessie hissed, emerging from behind the wall and grabbing the cat's paw. Meowth looked from his paw to the doorknob, and jerked it away in shock. He couldn't BELIEVE he just did that...he would blow their covers big time. But the more he thought about it, the more he caught an agonized word in the otherwise unintelligble shouts and screams, the more he wanted to help the guy. But at the same time he didn't want to be seen by the Devil Incarnate. He was torn between what to do when Jessie tossed him off his thought train.  
  
"What are they saying?"  
  
"Look for yahself," Meowth coaxed with fearful in his feline eyes, pulling back Persian to let Jessie peep through the window...Her face turned white. She had looked just in time to see the scientist move aside slightly, letting her catch a clear view of the scaly, clawed hand hanging off of the table.  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: I decided to slow it down a bit. Sorry to end it in a rather awkward spot. Oo; Next chapter: Cid Inadvertantly Lands himself In Deep Dog Crap---not literally. But it's guaranteed that more happy, fluffy, wonderful things will happen to Cid in chapter 17. BTW, I know I'm a hypocrite for constantly denouncing fics that portray Hojo as all evil, but it's necessary for-to--- well...you'll see. -_^ One more thing: I have nothing against wolves. ^^; 


	17. Too Blind to See

**End of A Reality**  
  
by Blue9Tiger/edited and proofreadd by DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana, story by La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
**Editor's Notes: **Made a lot of useless changes in this one, mostly due to my Cid possession/obsession problem... Mmm... Cid.. angst... turmoil.... BWAHAH.  
  
**A/N:** Uh...please be aware that this is pseudo sci-fi/action/adventure. Due to my relative ignorance, this is the best I can do. ; ;  
  
*~*~*  
  
List of Planetouched members compiled by the Mahogany Town Police Department  
  
1. S.O.Demoni  
2. I.G.Gainsborough (deceased)  
3. E.V-V.Hojo  
4. L.V.Hojo (deceased)  
5.S.W.Hale  
6.B.R.Westwood  
7.N.Nanba  
8. S.U.A-L.Sebastian  
9. R.K.Elm  
10. B.D.Ivy  
  
*~*~*  
  
**Chapter 17: **Too Blind to See  
  
*~*~*  
  
Threads of pale, transient light spun an eerie tangle of energy that hovered a foot or two above ground. The members of AVALANCHE stood warily before it, amidst a biting wind that bent the sparsely scattered grass blades and tore them from their roots. The light that peeked out from the rent in the air served to taunt and tease them as if to say, "What are you waiting for?"   
  
What _were_ they waiting for, anyway? Why the hesitancy and tense apprehension... of something dangerous and deadly? They had gone against certain death before. They had faced the murderous seraph in the very core of hell... and lived. This portal should've been like clearing out Beachplugs on the shores. And yet, enough doubt lingered to keep them from storming into the unknown the same way they had stormed through the gale-ridden mouth of the Northern Crater.  
  
But the Northern Crater wasn't laced with uncertainty. They knew what had festered at the center of the planet's core. They could only guess what was beyond this web of light.   
  
_Enough waiting. We aren't going to get them back by standing around._   
  
"We're breaking through."  
  
The blood-encrusted blade that had been nicked and cloven too many times to count now was raised two-handed in the air. It fell crisp on its target. The point of the sword that had seen many Bandersnatch heads fall by its edge drove into the scarce tendrils of dim light, which flared into pulsating rays that hurled Cloud onto the ground, and ripped the sword from his hands. Stars danced briefly in front of his eyes as an upside-down Yuffie landed behind his head and whipped out her shuriken, levelling her nimble eyes with the target and threw. The weapon shaved the air and collided, bending the sparking wound, but clattering uselessly on the ground.  
  
"H--HEY----what the?!!!" Yuffie sputtered while blinking in confusion. Tifa shot her and a still grounded Cloud a frustrated look. She had her arms crossed, leaning on one hip and staring annoyed at the murky sky.  
  
"I told you. There's no way in." A dark laugh penetrated the lengthened silence as the gaunt man appeared suddenly behind Tifa and lengthened her shadow. He raised a slender hand to his holster with that peculiar sluggish, mechanical motion and fired a round with the Death Penalty, smoke pouring out of its barrel and obscuring the light.  
  
"There _is_ always a way in." The curtain of smoke rose and the portal bloomed. "There is _never_ a way out," He approached the bulging orb, his scarlet cape, still filmed in aging dust from that cursed coffin, flowing at the back of his knees. The wind blew with more ferocity which seemed to repulse the light, which shrank and collapsed on itself, leaving the grey sky with no remnant of the disturbance.   
  
"Cut the riddles and tell it straight out, goth-boy!" snapped the ninja, not caring much for Vincent's enigmatic and persistent silence. If he knew, why didn't he tell? What good was it to keep it to yourself? What good were you, then? "Whaddaya know about all this crud?" she asked, impatience drilled in her shifty eyes.  
  
Tifa shot the girl a warning stare, afraid that Vincent would change his mind and return to silence.  
  
Lucky them, he didn't.  
  
"This door..." He motioned with his right arm to the now-nonexist portal. "..leads to an alternate world. A world much like ours, but a utopia in the heart of a much larger dystopia."  
  
"A whuzzah to the whuzzah...?" Yuffie blinked with a puzzled expression.  
  
"You've seen it?" Tifa frowned, apparently understanding the caped-man's lingo.  
  
Vincent shook his head, which was sufficient enough to answer the question, and he didn't elaborate further. But Tifa wasn't going to let their lackidasical comrade off that easily. She clamped both hands on her wide hips and shot a narrow glare at the space where the portal had been.  
  
"That doesn't explain why we're locked out."   
  
The red-caped man was now turned turned away from them, staring into oblivion with those unnerving blood-red eyes, reaching for a less... disturbing memory than the nightmares he lived through. "This Planet yearned to keep its children. But Shin-Ra wanted to keep its Mako rates high. They prevented further migration by making these doors impossible to pass after a certain number had left."  
  
That says something about why it's here," Tifa started, half-hoping that the blinding light would sear open the hazy sky once again.. "But it doesn't help us figure a way past it."  
  
"I cannot help you there," the grave man answered unconcernedly.  
  
"Great, so we're stuck," Tifa muttered. She hauled herself to the wall of sky and landed a roundhouse kick onto it. Still it didn't budge. Frustrated, she stumbled away from it, her tread hard on the unvegetated ground. She felt the coarse, dust-enveloped fabric of Vincent's cape brush past her. She shivered reflexively: Nothing on that man ever warned up. It could be a day in the triple digits with the scorching sun boiling the sands of Costa del Sol, and he and his clothes would be like they were still locked in that coffin. As if he was still dead.  
  
The young woman cupped her forehead in her gauntleted hand, leaned back, sighed, and let it slip down to her side.Things were beginning to look bleaker and bleaker. On top of all that, Vincent was-----mumbling. Quite... unlike him, as it was more characteristic of someone... else.....  
  
"'It... has the properties of a magnet except the lock which seals it. When open, this pole repels and the opposite pole attracts-----'"  
  
She leaned her head to the side, glimpsing the very, very faint spark of what looked like life in the dead pupils thorugh a mass of tangled black hair. Life... loathing, remorseful, hate-filled. But life nonetheless. "'---however, the barrier can be broken by an object of sufficient mass coupled with high velocity---'"  
  
"Vincent...?" Tifa asked, more than a bit unnerved. This wasn't like him at all. Someone content to answer with one or two syllables; if he had anything more to say, it would be in his head, not out his mouth. But wait... the tone, or lack thereof, hadn't changed a bit. As if he was quoting someone.  
  
Sure enough, whatever emotion that had surfaced plunged into the depths of the man's nonexistent soul, and he was speaking normally... as normal as he got, anyway.   
  
"The airship will open the door."  
  
"Now we're getting somewhere," Tifa stated with rising determination. She inhaled  
the brisk wind and turned her gaze to the west. They'd find their lost crew soon enough.  
  
Not soon enough to erase the nagging worry in her mind, but if Cid's assistant/cook/tea-brewer/throw rug lived up to her reputation, they'd be through that damned door in no time. "Shera might know how to fix it. Lets pay her a visit."  
*~*~*  
  
Reeve didn't need to ask what the hell had happened as he slowed down a mad dash through the hall and spotted the back of the president's stately white trenchcoat. A bandage draped loosely over an embarassing goose egg on Reno's forehead and the fact that Rude's arm was in a sling was enough to tell at least part of the story. Then there was Elena and--the "dead" head Turk--- the latest exec gossip circulated faster than the most outrageous tabloids. Being the practical, realistic type,  
it never occured to him that it could be true.....There he was, freshly exhumed, more rock-faced and reserved than ever, fitting for what was so recently a corpse..... but Tseng appeared very much alive.  
  
That wasn't the only thing. Gyahaha and Kyahaha and Lardman were there as well. It must have been of dire importance if the president had summoned all of them there: Except Hojo, of course. That was a no-brainer: tortoises weren't quick to go anywhere. Probably he was holed up in his lab, planning... someone's... premature... demise.....  
  
_What lab?_ Reeve asked himself as he slid closer to the conglomerate that had gathered in front of the scorched heap of tangled metal. _Old man finally did us a favor and did himself in,_ he surmised as teams of Blastoise trudged about the blackened remains, their hydro cannons belching out copious amounts of water that strangled the last strings of fire. A scientist stood rather unimportantly in the background, fiddling with some device. Reeve approached the rest of the corporate giants and at the same time, kept his distance, especially wary of the president...  
  
Who at that moment turned around.  
  
The bearded man's planned step fell short, and he had one foot on the ground and the other dangling quite ridiculously in mid-air, his mouth partly open and his bulging eyes fixated to the face of the President. Incoherent babble dribbled out of his mouth as Rufus stared him down incredulously.   
  
"Reeve, if you have anything to say that is worthy of your intelligence, say it. Otherwise..." His teeth locked into a crooked grimace---Reeve could swear on the bones of his old man that Rufus spent millions on dental work. And the beard..... If there was anyone who spent longer in the bathroom to make sure he was clean-shaven, it had to be Rufus. "Bite your tongue."   
  
Rufus turned back to face the burned lab. The Blastoise team had finished and were withdrawing, but the residual smoke still clung to the air, making it unpleasant to breathe. But that was the least of their worries.  
  
Rufus' arctic gaze burned into the now-useless machinery, the ashes of the equipment which he himself had shrunk a branch of the Weapons Department to cover the costs, and the unoccupied tubes that held "296,000,000 gil," he stated with misleading calmness. He moved away from the yellow tape stretched across the charred rubble.   
  
"296,000,000 GIL!" he exploded in uncharacteristic rage, the frigid ice in his eyes   
bursting into flame in tyrannical mania. As the executives stared at him with increased uneasiness, Rufus cupped two palms on his temples and dug his neatly clipped nails into the crown of his head. He had calmed down to the point of sounding genuinely docile, but it wasn't helping.   
  
"296,000,000 gil," he repeated barely above a whisper. With the same even-temperedness, the president spoke through the semblance of a snarl, "I'll be damned if those... creatures could burn that quickly." The snarl tightened. " Or if Hojo could burn that quickly." The frozen aqua glowing in his subzero eyes dashed suspiciously about at flinching employees.  
  
Admittedly, he had held the Turks back. They could have easily stopped AVALANCHE in a weakened state from dealing with security.But he was expecting that the recently acquired creatures would find no difficulty in procuring a meal. Instead, AVALANCHE set the lab on fire. Arson. That wasn't their style. Had someone tipped them off? He wouldn't doubt it. Rufus wasn't an imbecile. He was highly aware of the animosity between his executives. One of them could have given them the hint that fire was the best way to cripple their target. Hm. He would find a scapegoat later. What mattered now was recovering the escaped gil.   
  
At even temperment again, Rufus turned to his executives on a quick, and to Reeve's observation, catlike heel. Calm. Cool-headed. As if nothing had happened. "Heidegger, Scarlet, tigthen security. Have the weaponry trained and broken in."   
  
The two executives knew what that order meant and resented it fully. Yet more of those slobbering Celadon imports to haul in and make Shin-Ra-worthy. Rufus was really laying it hard on them, they grumbled mentally. All this over some crummy labrats that would outlive their usefulness eventually, anyway.   
  
Of course, they hadn't _seen_ the labrats.  
  
Rufus had.  
  
"The rest of you, make yourself useful," he growled to the last two who were, in Rufus' eyes, only suited to enhance the company's reptuation without impacting it. And they knew it. But they weren't about to dispute it. Palmer waddled away in a huff, and Reeve edged away with a suspicious darting eye, blinking madly to get this picture out of his mind that was developing right before his eyes. Paraanoid? Perhaps. But as he drew farther away and the form of his president grew blurrier and blurrier, he could see... CLEARLY..... a bloodthirsty cat in his place...  
  
Reeve took off down the hall so as not to completely lose it... if he hadn't lost it, already. The only ones left were Rufus, the Turks, and the scientist in the background, who was now turning two bizarre-looking devices over in his smooth palms. One, a control box with raised blinking dials, and the other...a simple black metallic box. Rufus raised his hand and swept his hair---and a miniscule bead of sweat, off his high forehead.   
  
The stranger spoke. A mild, forceless weak sort of voice, not to mention belonging to another outsider. But, that Ivy character had proved invaluable to facilitating the growth of their finances.... there was no reason for this Professor Elm to be otherwise.  
  
"Um.....hello, Mr. Shin-Ra. Here I have some... uh... tracking equipment---" He fumbled withthe larger machine in his hands. "--that'll help me find him. Uh... these wonderful people.." He gestured to the Turks using one free hand, shot them a nervous glance, and again looked at Rufus. "--can... er..... do the rest," mumbled the thick-glassed man, fidgeting under the two glaciers that riveted to his squeamish person.   
  
So, this was Elm, most renowned PokÃ©mon researcher in the Jouto region, cheaper than anyone from Kanto or Houen, and certainly far less expensive than Ivy. He acted more strangely than Reeve as of late... which gave him no cause for concern... why should he be concerned? He was Rufus Shin-Ra. Only the richest and most influential man in Kanto, Jouto, and Houen combined. Able to sway the vote with the usual methods, kidnapping, bribery, threats, but all "legally", of course. On top of that, he would again be in posession of four models of lucrative weaponry, once the old man was found. Their profits would soar. At this rate, he would own Kanto. And Gaia. Ah.. yes... everything was going to plan. He had almost forgotten his unseemly outburst already. Why, he was even forgetting that his chin was coated in hair and there were stubs of it that were getting ridiculously long, dotting his cheeks, and he had milk and fish for the past few DAYS. Not to mention that anything and everything continued to irritate him and that blasted headache. Including the small black bug crawling unnoticed across the scientist's shoulder. Following its rounded path with his entire head he ordered Tseng:   
  
"Kindly remove this thing from the professor's garments." A set of disgruntled footfalls rapped heavily on the floor, but the scowl was invisible and the mid-age Turk buried this degradation of being misued and reduced in purpose. How could that young upstart, a foreigner, not to mention a scientist, with no fighting experience whatsoever, with a...... pink rock for a weapon, be given the job of recovering the lost professor? Perhaps the president was losing it. He wouldn't be surprised, with the way he acted and the way Reeve, whom he trusted a great deal more than the callow president, acted around him. But concealing his suspicions and his grudges, he moved dutifully to brush the spider off of the scientist, when a hand snapped up to his shoulder and briskly slapped Tseng's hand away.  
  
"Oh.. it's not there by accident, I brought it along with me." He brought his other hand to his shoulder and let the spider crawl across it, two moving dots crossing his palm. "It's much weaker than Spinarak or Ariados, but it releases enough poison to incapacitate its enemy. And it's good at scaring the daylights out of some people. Some people are so scared of spiders they get incapacitated themselves!" He let the spider crawl on the back of his hand, up his arm, back across his shoulder to his other shoulder, and down his other arm. "Ecosystems around the world depend on these arthropods. They act as a kind of insect control---if you have a bug problem, spiders are the real exterminator-----"  
  
Rufus arched his eyebrows. Why the hell were these scientist types so damn eccentric? This Elm may have had a weak and unauthorative air about him, vaguely reminiscint of Hojo's though completely lacking the intimidation factor, coming off as more of a bookish nerd that had nothing else better to do than prate about spiders, and yet, there was no lack in self-confidence... or stamina.  
  
"You see this?" He let Rufus breathe as he pulled out from his deep labcoat pockets a rolled-up sheet of steel wiring running criss-cross, a simplistic net. The Shin-Ra President tilted his head, staring at the contraption sideways. He held his head straight again, answering through teeth grinding with impatience,  
  
"A net. Why do you keep such a useless device with you?"  
  
"To demonstrate the spider web's ingenuity!" Elm answered with a giddy light in his eyes. Rufus was taken aback by this unwarranted youthfulness, childishness, even, and he issued a growl which he himself was unconscious of.  
  
"Observe its intracacies, its flawless structure, how it's delicate and durable at the same time, how---" The light in his eyes waned to a far more subtle gleam. "It catches the most evasive of prey---" He cut himself off, mentally twitching underneath that dangerous glare. "I will get to work now and bring the Professor back safely..." he resolved apologetically, putting on an unecessarily wide grin and letting the spider crawl into a container in his pocket. Rufus knew the nature of that grin. Too exaggerated to be genuine, it was veiling some disguised purpose, an alternate agenda. Perhaps it was a mistake to hire an outsider for this job. But, he was nothing like Ivy. There was an eighty percent chance that Ivy would bite you in the back. Speaking of Ivy...where was she? An irritated scowl creasing his face, Rufus stalked to his office to make a phone call... and ease his stomach with some smoked salmon.   
  
Smoked? No. Why not raw? Yes, tonight he would eat it raw.   
  
*~*~*  
  
Everything HURT so GODDAMN BAD......  
  
Right now, Cid wanted more than anything else to slow cook in Hades' cauldron. Or get devoured by a Behemoth. Or fight Sephiroth ten times over again with a blunt spear. The bloodiest of deaths paled compared to _this_... being pinned on his front, wires connecting him to some monitor that beeped persistently in rhythm with his groans of pain, his arched spine that he was sure was gonna crack right through the ragged scars crossing his back, and his arm... his arm... covered to the elbow in rough scales, weighing his arm down, leadening it enough that it felt it would drop straight off his shoulder and twitch on the blood-washed floor. But forget that. It was the only limb on Cid's body that wasn't paralyzed. It moved..... it...... huh?  
  
Cid caught the ripple of muscle through a curtain of racing sweat. The cries died. The clawed limb raised in erratic jitter with a mind separate from and one with Cid's...... sleeping... entity... waiting to be free, waiting to be rid of this human carcass.   
  
The rising and falling crests on the monitor split: now there were two. Which would mean... the other subject was now viable.  
  
"So...you are awake," Hojo quietly acknowledged with his back turned from the specimen. He averted his gaze from the monitor and was busy over the scalpel, a metalloid square, and the tranquilizer fluid. The latter would be indispensable through the early stages. If Draconis Rex killed the host before fully transforming..... He'd rather not risk eight years of research and four years of experimentation. Heh... but it all had been worth it.   
  
Taking the needle he fitted it into the syringe and shuffled towards Cid's arm. The needle barely poked the scales when the other arm reached painfully under and clamped vice-like on the target. Hojo didn't flinch. "It is acting exactly as I anticipated." He very placidly lifted the momentarily  
mobile arm and reached the deadlier one, administering the serum and sending a numbing shock through Cid's entire body, freezing the arm..... for a second. Hojo shuffled past the limb and heard an unsettling rip. He looked back to see the top straps torn in two. He eyed them narrowly and took the piece of sillicon. If his foresight told him anything, the straps were primitive restraints that would not keep the subject captive. If it did escape which he was now sure it would, the microchip would guarantee that he would know its location. But.... how to insert it.....?   
  
Simple... like he always did it.  
  
With another hand he took the scalpel still coated in blood from its earlier use.  
  
The beast that had so long slept entombed in this pilot was waking. It felt like.... like... it was clawing through his chest, a fiery pain seared through the cavity which felt hollow despite the crapload of lungs and stuff rearranging themselves inside. As if that wasn't enough, Hojo was cutting into him _again_, the blood snaking down wherever the blade was doing its bloody work, collecting in a glob at the back of his neck. He wanted to puke. Maybe the sensation of stomach acid and a long-forgotten lunch corroding his cancer-infested throat walls would make him forget how bad the pain gnawed at him everywhere else. _Especially_ the head.... chipping at his skull with that _fucking_ scalpel.... Hojo was putting something into it...GREAT...there was a piece of shit stuck in his head and it was bleeding all over and he was putting back that piece of skull covered in his innards and he was cementing it or somethin'... Now Hojo had taken a needle to it to sew his head back up. Pinpricks of pain stabbed all over his cranium as the needle pushed into his head again and again and again and AGAIN....  
  
However, it was a muted pain compared to that blazing agony that razed his insides.  
  
Now the other arm started to change. The inner pain escalated. The creature continued to tear. It flashed in its mind. Grinning cruelly at the human's demise. Waiting, anticipating, lurking within.   
  
Cid saw it.  
  
It saw Cid.   
  
"Who're.... what're you?..!!"  
  
_They call me Draconis Rex... ignorant as they are. I was born without a name... at least not one **you** would care to know._  
  
"Drac--what?! The _hell...?"_  
  
_I'm surprised... even insulted. You should know me... We share many things, Highwind, many things....  
  
_"You're lying..... fucking liar.... ya ain't real... you're just in my mind...."  
  
_We saved each other, remember? Or am I expecting too much from you, human?  
  
_"Saved---?!"  
  
_Your mother told you not to play in the street like the other boys. Said you were... too fragile. They swung at the ball too fast for you. The car was too fast as well, it seems..... It hit you. There was blood on the ground... Lots of blood. You remember the blood, don't you?  
  
_  
"I don't... Never had a mother.... Don't remember..."  
  
_You remember her eyes, though, don't you? They were blue, blue like the sky. People said you had your mother's eyes.  
  
_"How did you....?! .........Shut up..... _Shut the FUCK UP."_  
  
_I was playing too when they took me. With my brothers.... I was the youngest, a hundred years or so, but I was the Chosen, too. The Chieftains said I would lead the clan to greatness. Then the humans came... killed my brothers as quick as can be, then shot me too.... I don't know about your blood, but I remember mine. They took me, tried to salvage me to further their "great knowledge." And then....  
  
_".......Then what."_  
_  
_They were looking for someone with your kind of case. Desperate mother... desperate for anything to save her son. Your genes had a rare design... compatible, they said. Shin-Ra wanted someone to help in the wars to come, someone who could fly their machines like no other... someone who could fly like us. Like a dragon.  
  
_"You... no... hah... ain't true, you.... bastard, I was _inside_ a car when I the accident happened... my parents died... I went to the Shin-Ra boarding school and they picked me out for special training...."  
_  
You believed that...? I planted the seed of doubt, tried to tell you, and you STILL believed that.....?You were a brilliant little kid too--straight A's in school, amazing test scores, a teacher's favorite, always fiddling with electronics and fixing them too. Perfect candidate for their Master Pilot. Absolutely perfect.  
  
So they used me to save you. We fused.  
  
_"No....."  
  
_Both our brains were damaged beyond repair... our bodies too... and... if you care to speak in such vague terms, our "souls" as well.... They put us together, Highwind, made us one being.... Then, to their own convenience, the bastards locked me up. My body, at least.... our soul and your mind, that's all they wanted.  
  
_"J-JESUS. I'm not listening to this crap----stupid head, SHUT UP."  
  
_They didn't want anything in the way, either. So they killed your mother as soon as the procedure was done. Tracked down your worthless drunk of a father and killed him too. Took away your baby brother and put him in some other family's care... must have been a reason for that. The Shin-Ra don't have mercy.  
  
_"I never had a family or a brother or a family so shut up, shut up, SHUT UP."  
  
_Then we woke up.  
  
......We fought for a while. It was hard, that first month or so. You cried a lot. For your mother, sometimes, but mostly alone. They ended up putting us in a straitjacket and locked us in a padded room so we wouldn't kill each other. Or, in your case, your own self. You ever wonder about those scars on your wrists?  
  
_"No. I got my hands stuck in a wire fence when I was five, you dumbfuck. I remember it clear as day."  
  
_Heh. You're right. That's why it hurt so much when you tried to cut through the scars. But you kept on doing it anyway. Finally you gave up, gave into your new soul, and I allowed you to take our body, and then they trained you to love the skies and be with the skies... and kill for them. And all the while, I helped you while you were in control...  
  
Now it's MY turn.  
  
_"What?! No.. NO... I AIN'T NO DRAGON FREAK----!"  
  
_You can't deny it forever. Why did you want to see what was out there and spread your wings? Because you HAVE wings. My wings. _  
  
"You're crazy, FUCKING _CRAZY. _I must be crazy..."  
  
_Why could you summon me in the first place? I was in you.   
  
_"NO..."  
  
_Why did you fight like one of us? Because you ARE.   
  
_"Stoppit..... I'm havin' A REAL BAD dream..... but it's just a dream.... somethin' I need to get outta my system... yeah... that's it..."   
_  
And did you ever let ME out?_ NO.  
  
"GET the HELL OUTTA MY SIGHT-----"   
  
_It's my turn, Highwind. You can't deny it._  
  
" ---AAARGHREERRRRRRHHHHH!!"   
  
The human arm flecked with a few scales flew to his eyes and the knuckles caught him square in the socket. The lids started to bruise as Cid remastered the hand and nursed this new pain. Hojo replaced his instruments on the tray and circled the man, black gaze boring into a fractious and combative soul.   
  
"Frustrating, isn't it, to battle your own self? To have members out of joint.....you would think that there was someone there, wouldn't you?"  
  
_LET ME OUT......_  
  
"You're full of AAACKKKKK-----" The human hand leapt to the back of his neck, the fingers squeezing tight around it and the scaling thumb crushing the throat, strangling the life out of the poor pilot.  
  
"This won't do at all." Hojo reached for another needle and forced it into the renegade arm. It came away rigid, but left Cid half-dead. He lay there, wheezing, gasping, the blue color in his face receding only to overtake the right hand and.....  
  
Change THAT into a claw, too. Nothing could go slower than it already was. It killed to breathe. Things were crawling on the inside. Changing. His lungs suddenly weren't breathing the right air. This was moldy and musty air. He had to be out. Free. To breathe. To fly. No, not with an airplane. _To FLY. _To fly? Man, his mind was REALLY going on him..... going crazy, yeah, that must be it. He COULDN'T lose it..... not NOW.....  
  
He had to escape.  
  
A staggered swipe of the left claws, and the middle straps were severed. Amidst the crushing pain he pushed himself foward and squeezed underneath the lower straps. Inch. Another squeeze. Inch. His upper torso was hanging off the table. Hojo's eyes were again on the monitor. He edged off the table. Now his ribs were hanging off. The straps were at his ankles. Then the other arm wised up and dug its lengthening nails into the meat of the treacherous arm and tore down through the tender scales. Cid howled with pain and looked on in horror as the gold blood dripped down in parallel streams.   
  
Hojo looked up from the changing signals with a cold frown.  
  
"I suggest you refrain from any other attempts at escape. Draconis Rex does not know it is captive. If you try to move it against its will it could prove to be quite..." A retaliatory scrape of formed claws against half-scaled hide and a scream from Cid swayed the frown into a slight smile. "..._painful._"  
  
"PAINFUL?!" he roared. "It hurts bad enough... you can't add to it any MORE."  
  
"Perhaps," he acknowledged. "Perhaps I am not as skilled at causing the---" He chuckled as he looked the man up and down and noted the progressing change that that would made his comment rather ironic.. "---human body to suffer. My predecessor was far more adept at that..and to think that he loved his spouse enough to adopt her maiden name as his own. Outrageous for one of this world. I suppose he was acculturated into the other world where the female population is much more foward in thinking. Hah... on the other hand..." An eye shifted to the subject. Its fingers were   
growing thicker and visibly rougher. The faint stub of a tail was beginning to poke through the man's cargo pants. The beginnings of wings broke the surface on either side of the horrendously curved spine.  
  
"..Dragons are solely patriarchal. The very strength of the species depends on the male's ability to control and dominate its flock. It is an uneasy relationship, especially among the lesser dragons where there may be two or three potential leaders. If the leader proves insuffiicient, the flock destroys it....."  
  
He stroked his narrow chin. "Which kind are you?" he asked simply, in full knowledge that his first subject couldn't hear him and frankly, didn't care to, wrapped in a thousand simultaneous agonies. If only he could make his arms work for him again, if he could claw through the rest of those goddamn straps...  
  
Cid's mind scrambled for an answer. It tumbled every which way through the pulsing sea of chemicals. They were changing things in his HEAD...He shouldn't be here. He was here. He had to get home. To Rocket Town. No... to the sky. To the clouds. The hell?!? What the fuck was he thinking, he couldn't fly.... not _really_ fly.... He could jump, hell, could he jump, but he couldn't fly. But the chemicals... Said he could...said he was able...  
  
_LET ME OUT..... JUST THIS ONCE, LET ME OUT!!! Please... No... I shouldn't be begging...... I SHOULD BE MAKING YOU.....  
_  
"ST---STROHHP!!! QUIT TELLIN' ME TO---huh?"  
  
Pouring all his will into controlling that right arm, he raised it and rubbed his throat as tenderly as scales against skin could manage. That's where the vocal chords were, right? Something wasn't right in there...  
  
_LET_ME_OUT, DAMMIT!!!!!!_  
  
Just then, something roared through him. It was a full-blown bestial cry, unimpeded by his own rough, thoroughly human voice... The beast was awake. It heaved Cid's body upwards, twisted him upright, and sent the claws slashing through the lower straps as well as the wires. Hojo in alarm grabbed for the syringe, but the freed creature slammed Cid's boot into his ribs and the scientist with a crack crashed into the wall. Cid was now on the table, but standing on it, one eye filled with terror and the other with madness, and the beast hurled his helpless body off of the table and onto the floor, squirming uncontrollably. The change quickened. The right arm was consumed past the elbow, and they attacked Cid, slashing his jaw and letting the gold blood dribble down his neck.   
  
The sense he still had left moved his head out of the way to avoid getting torn apart by the damn claws. He wormed backwards on the floor, bloodied and dodging the deadly slash of his own limbs.  
  
Hojo regained his senses and slid up the wall. With an irritated scowl formed on his face, he shoved his hand into his pocket and retrieved the dart gun. But at the very sight of the weapon, the creature lunged for the scientist, Cid's salivating mouth open as the beast roared threateningly in his face. One hand shot to the throat, claws cruelly curved towards the thin flesh while the other one raised for the death blow.   
  
"Belligerent already, I see. We'll have to rectify this."   
  
Swiftly and silently the syringe was released. It sunk hard in the constricting arm and  
loosened; the claws gouged into the wall. Cid to his horror found his claws in the wall, and he yanked them out, putting the godforsaken clawed hands to his head in despair... His voice was hardly recognizable to himself as he growled a plea to a deaf deity,  
  
"..GOORRGHHD.... STRROOHHPP... IRGGHHTTT...!!!!"  
  
He felt his chest ram into the door, the syringes searing the choking air around him,   
the door buckle and bend under the weight of the monster. The hinges rattled as this  
unearthly power rushed the door, warning the ones behind the door to scatter but falling too early to prevent their discovery.   
  
The door fell with a slam and a stirred cloud of dust and Cid charged for the basement exit with hell written on his screaming face. Hojo stood in the doorway, brow knitted in thought. It was then he looked down... and saw the two felines and the girl. He lowered his head, Mako eyes locking with the scared-to-death blue ones of Jessie and Meowth, who didn't know which to be more frightened of: the fleeing monster or the predatory stare that lanced their souls...  
  
"What do we have here?" His menacing eyes shifted to look them over. Two...no three potential test subjects. One a little visually challenged, but all the better suited to his purposes. He removed the needle on the dart gun. With one deft motion he had it fitted with another...with a clouded chemical black as the new moon floating in the tube. He aimed the dart gun down at the fear-stricken Meowth.  
  
"It seems that the old adage of 'curiosity killed the cat' still has not been proved false."  
  
"W---we wasn't snoopin', honest-----!--!--!"  
  
"Meowth's right!" Jessie seconded, her fake confidence signalling James to bolt. Dammit, that 2-watt lightbulb better catch on or they'd all be nailed. She showed a pleasant smile, which failed to mask the quavering fear in her voice from the scientist who couldn't be fooled by a lie hashed up in three seconds, and even if it was the truth, it didn't matter, if it was another specimen that could be sacrificed to science...  
  
"We were just going to leave---!"  
  
"Oh.....were you?"  
  
_Yes, we're leaving right_now._  
  
Praying to God that Team Rocket would live up to its name, Jessie and Meowth bombed, the latter's paw wrapped tightly around Persian's tail. James was still in the corner. _Stupid idiot. Run faster! He's right behind us!_  
  
The syringes started flying with deadly accuracy. Had they been a fraction of a second slower, that would be the end of them. Their pursuer walked coolly after them, the needles embedding into the wall, the floor, the ceiling. The Rockets flew through the nest of bats, their hearts in their throat parched with terror, running faster than they ever thought possible. Every squeak and squeal from the bats that were nailed with the needle stopped their hearts. Every time that could've been THEM that was pierced with the deadly array of syringes. But instead they felt the bats wiry bones crunch  
beneath them as their velvet bodies carpeted the bare ground.  
  
_Hurry... get going... FASTER, DAMMIT!!!!!_  
  
James' panicked gaze caught a heavy oaken door. With all their strength the Rockets pulled it open on its crumbling hinges. When open enough to let them squeeze through, they bombed through it and slammed it shut, a tangled bunch of cobwebs  
jarring it in its place. Once inside, with the panic-driven fervor of vampires that were in danger of being exposed to light, threw up the lids of three ornate boxes in the room and pulled the cover shut.  
  
They did not know the cursed purpose of this cobweb-strewn room, nor the three decades of nightmares that plagued the center occupant..... nor the grim blood that stained the plush cushion where dead bones still cried out for mercy. They lay there like the dead men that filled two of the coffins, ceasing to breathe and ceasing to think...think about the complete darkness they had immersed themselves in, about the fact that they were lying with human bones bleached with the passing years, that their pursuer might have heard the door slam and would scour the room and wrench the lid off the coffins to find easy prey and stab into their hearts with that syringe.   
  
Outside, the scientist tread with steps so light they were thunderous on the packed earth. His hunched body moved malignant across the low-ceilinged passage, death in all its wretched forms embodied in one man. The green gleam cut through the clouding murk. He swivelled his head back and forth, his nose twitching slightly, trained to detecting the faintest odor of concealed beasts, but aside from the pervasive smell of bat guano in the basement, nothing. A brief scowl sketched itself on his narrow visage. It seemed as if his potential specimens had concealed themselves well. He looked at the tracking device. Yes... Draconis Rex was far more important.... to his research and for locating Gemini, Zero-X, and the two hybrids. If the girl and PokÃ©mon didn't turn up, it was only a minor loss to science.  
  
He halted his walk right in front of the door. The cobweb-strewn door... behind which justice was completed. Justice that was his duty and his right to carry out in the first place. Actions which he hardly regretted, deeds for which he felt no remorse, because he didn't need to. It was for science.   
  
"Ha... Valentine... you were such a fool," he sneered at a hazy memory.  
  
The footfalls continued past the door and on towards the murky light, a grisly trail of gold blood marking where Draconis Rex had fled.  
*~*~*  
  
The driving torrents of rain plunged through the thinning droplets of blood, pumelling the human tracks that ground a frantic pattern through the grime.  
  
Frantic and despairing of an unavoidable doom.  
  
An invisible clock counted the seconds, the minutes, the hours, punctuating the irreversible passage of impartial time that shoved the pilot deeper and deeper into the sea of inhumanity. The storm raged, bringing its wrath upon the tracks. Coarse fragments of torn clothing lay uselessly near the warped prints that stood in the place of an unmistakable mark of humans. They stretched over the field, the damned being that made them sending the wolves scattering in his path.   
  
To even think that not too long ago he steered the Highwind amidst the blazing face of  
Meteor. In full control of the ship and _himself_. A man like the rest of them in mind and body. Now...... Not even Shera would have recognized the desperate creature, plowing through the mud on four legs, masked with leathery scales, hair gone all but for clumps of yellow jutting from his scalp, the clotted blood leaving frigid globs on his lower jaw and arm the scales on which flashed metallic in the blasts of lightning, both eyes swollen from his hostile fists socking him there, eyes that he didn't know were losing their pupils and being engulfed by blazing aqua, burning in the sockets of a bestial skull.  
  
God... he didn't need to let up running to feel the muzzle protruding from his face, the spearlike teeth that now filled his mouth, the dead weight of... that.... fully-formed tail dragging him down... and there was that metal crap that son of a bitch stuffed into his _frickin' HEAD_, It was ringing..beeping... buzzing.... whatever that   
sound was... that wouldn't STOP...  
  
That and the dogged voice of the beast.  
  
_It's time, Highwind. _  
  
"NROOGHH....!!!" The dying man pleaded in savage roars, feeling the   
weight of time dragging him by the throat into the Pit like so many others had been before him. The bits of yellow shrunk and shrivelled, the fore and hind claws tore from the mud as the wholly freed entity took command and broke the fetter to the earth. The draconic wings sprouted to full length from the animal's ridged back, the layers of hide stretching over the breaks in the skin, sealing the wounds. The fearsome pits of an unearthly aqua radiated an uncontrolled ferocity... of an unspent youth. Tar-choked vapors poured from his jaws as a raspy roar split the clashing elements. He raised his serrated neck to the tumultuous heavens, wings akin to identical steel beams unyielding to the deluge. They began to beat, breaking against the mud below, grabbing the fearsome tides of air. His instincts were rusted by time, by being..... caged in the body of a man.  
  
He roared in enraged bitterness that time had gone by while he stood watching, was forced to become the subordinate because that... that _human_ swept him under a rug and pretended he wasn't there, but he was always there, a _part _of him, in his soul... he _was_ his soul, driving his ambitions forever skyward.   
  
But he still had those instincts. He could feel them sharpening as the wrathful winds assaulted him from all sides, rushing past the surface of his wings and freeing him from the drowned land, hefting his body foward into the wind, pushing the scaled beast closer to the black clouds. Releasing an imperious roar, he arched his neck and plunged into the treacherous winds, climbing the skies through the hellish wall of water, lightning faulting the blackness enveloping him. Through the raging storm, never once did he hear the screams of the pilot faint and stifled in his head...   
  
But they were there.   
  
And hell if he was going down without a fight.  
  
The war commenced.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The hungry wolves charged through the damp plains, a concerted pack of fur, teeth,  
and claws, in pursuit of the grazers farther south. Hojo obliterated their pawprints as he took one step across the ground-out path, quirked an eyebrow, and leaned in the direction of the running wolves. A queer light growing in his eyes, he began to chuckle dryly.   
  
"Time is a punctilious sculptor," he observed, with one eye on the fast-disappearing wolves and the other on the tracking device and the blue dot slowly moving across the map screen. "A pitiful lot they were.... Fugitives from... south Corel, wasn't it? They found refuge in Nibelheim..yes, I was generous enough to give them asylum....." he recounted. "It was effective. The procedure made sure there were no distinguishing marks that separate them from the others... heh..... heh....."   
  
The wolves reached further into the distance, their piercing howls renting the air.   
  
"Children of science, what music they make."   
  
Imagine, the howl of a natural-born wolf the same as a human that was physically altered. As he looked fixatedly at the liquid churning in the glass casing, his conclusion was firm. "'Death... the great equalizer'... how absurd.... it is this... this... that eliminates ALL distinctions and divisions that this presumptuous species contrives. "  
  
The blue dot was moving closer. "That point made, the subject should have fully transformed by now." Soon he would see it... the product of a dragon fused with a human. Two lives preserved, only one able to physically show itself at any given time, now that the process had finished. This would be quite... entertaining.  
  
An explosion of bestial sound made the sky tremble and the clouds quiver.  
  
"HHREEEEEERGHHHHH!!!!!"  
  
Hojo looked at the tracker. As he expected, the blue dot was precisely overhead the Nibelheim grasslands. Draconis Rex dropped from the skies, unfurling his wings at the last second and tearing across the field, roaring rivers of wind following the streak of scales and wings and claws. He traced a wide circle that sliced open the damp earth and shot into metallic clouds, plunging into the winds and gliding into the distance with a masterful cry, but the vast ocean's turmoil raging in his mind.  
  
_GET_OUT_OF_MY_FUCKING_BODY.  
_  
Draconis Rex felt himself jerk downwards, his wing muscles loosen as the human struggled for control. For a moment he succeeded. The wings furled, and the creature divebombed at breakneck speed, pulling up before smashing into the jagged peak of Mt. Nibel.   
  
_You've had your freedom long enough, Highwind. Now YOU'LL be on the sidelines, waiting for your chance to knock MY lights out so you can take---_  
  
_I'm doin' that right now, bastard._  
  
The human yanked him up and sent him flying backwards, the northward winds  
pushing against him. He bent his head downward to flip on his stomach, but the wings stopped before then, and he plummeted to the ground miles below.  
  
_You....._ A weakened growl escaped his scale lips before the draconic form haltingly  
transformed back to the pilot's body. He blinked his black-and-blue eyes, the white  
sun hot on his skin. Skin... skin? Must've meant... he held up his rough hands. He was   
back to normal. A grin broke the weathered features of his drawn face, and he raised his head to the sky, laughing raucously until he was hoarse. Through a raspy cough and he gave the bird to wherever the bastard was and shouted, "FUCK YOU, HOJO!! I'M STILL HERE, GOT THAT?! NO SON OF A BITCH DRAGON'S 'GONNA TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" The pilot looked over at the shabby town in the distance. _Oh, SHIT. SHERA... how am I gonna explain that----_  
  
_You're going to have a lot more to worry about than that, Highwind._  
_  
KISS MY ASS....._  
  
Within the dragon roared. He had his taste of freedom. He wanted it back. He lifted  
up Cid's foot, moving it into the dirt, and then the other, making him walk. Cid resisted.  
but the dragon held out, making him run, towards the shore, the beach, the lapping water. The stones cut his bare feet as the dragon forced him towards the ocean, and when he touched the scorched white sand he KNEW what the dragon was going to do. The beast hurled him into the ocean, making him crawl across the sand, dunked him underneath the salt water, holding his eyes and nose and mouth open.  
  
_Fucking shitface. You're gonna DROWN me.  
  
Good guess.   
  
_Another dunk. Another mouthful of salt._  
  
You're gonna kill yourself, too, idiot bastard,_  
  
_No... hahaa... just you._  
  
He could hear the dragon laughing in triumph. A laugh that shouldn't BE there..... god damn it all.. he was going to kill him... KILL... WHY did he need him? He didn't need him to live. He had lived without him his whole life... hadn't he?! Those stories... lies, all lies, ha....  
  
Cid's mental protests were pointless. The dragon wanted control and if it meant  
killing his other half, he'd do it. Over and over he dunked Cid, plunging him into the saltwater while Cid desperately tried to keep himself from going under. He couldn't take it much more... the dragon was about to conquer him.  
  
And then it took over before he expired, coughing and gasping for air with streams of   
water coursing down his his face. Draconis Rex lifted off from the shoreline, Cid   
cursing him vehemently from within. But why? He'd drowned him...he should be dead...!  
  
Wait. Of course not. A safeguard. To prevent the two subjects from killing each other, the moment one reached unconsciousness the other would take over. But that wouldn't stop the dragon from making his will alone known. He would maintain sole control. He would..... Crash into another mountain and the human would once again subjugate him. This time he rammed headlong into the slopes of Mt. Corel, shaking the very mountain to its core, his bones clattering from the pulverizing impact.  
  
Hojo was completely aware of this as he shuffled southward, his intent gaze darting across the map. The dot would move a while, stop, start, stop, and start again. That must mean... He stared into the sky, a scowl forming on his lips as the sillouhette of the dragon plunged into the shoreline. This did not particularly elate him. Raising his knuckles to his chin, he pondered this dilemma. As long as their struggle continued, the draconic form would never achieve the desired potential, nor would he recover the escaped subjects. But... what to do...  
  
Through the corner of his eye he could see a smoking crater formed by the plummeting dragon. He had better think of something quickly. Though he was intrigued by the struggle, the dragon was to serve higher purposes than be the constant opponent of the pilot. The question was, how to restrain him from resisting the dragon?  
  
Ha... of course..tranquilize the human subject. So simple, so easy... in theory.  
  
He watched the moving dot, loading another syringe into the device with a click. Once it stopped within firing range, he would make his move.  
  
*~*~*  
  
**TO BE CONTINUED....**  
  
Hey, thanks, MGS, for reading this, too! Tweaked quote is from Dracula. Stay tuned for chapter 18, where the Kuja ripoff makes another appearance, and things start to get ugly (as if they haven't, already) Also, will Cid come to terms with his new "friend"? Find out in the next EXCITING episode of--er..wrong channel. ^^: Stay tuned for chapter 18!  



	18. Farther Down

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/story and title by DarkMutaedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
A/N: Speaking of which, big thanks to her, as she remains the brains of this twisted fic, giving it shape and direction. -_^ Wow. Ivy is actually given a name in the dub. Er.....we were a few letters off, but..ah.that's life. ^^;  
  
*~*~*  
  
What we did was wrong. Now that I realize that it may be too late. Abandon our initial purpose. I have lost everything...I think I am losing myself. I ask you one last favor, before I discard these tools of suffering forever.  
  
Do not entangle yourself in a spider web. I hate to use this metaphor...I know it makes you uncomfortable, but the newer members are of a treacherous breed. You never trusted anyone, my friend. Do not start now.  
  
Samuel  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 18: Farther Down  
  
*~*~*  
  
The skull-splitting headache did not abate throughout the night. It remained a steady throb, worsening to a drilling presure on his temples only when Rufus was on the verge of forgetting that it was there. Then the nausea would roll in, and then he'd retch in the toilet while the phone rang and Dark Nation was barking and he had a window of two minutes to get the hell out of the bathroom and to the board room to preside at a meeting of the same squabling executives that would only increase the throbbing tenfold and he'd look into the toilet and stare at the disarrayed pieces of vomit before flushing the vile substance down. If his digestive system was going to be so cruel, it might serve as a reminder to decrease wine intake. But that was not the case: he hadn't had a drop of alcohol in his blood since he had switched to milk, to what he'd hoped was a passing fancy, for the sake of variety. Oh, yes, his diet had splendid variety: only every breed of fish native to the region plus the latest catch of fresh imports...  
  
Including that fresh-caught salmon. Its eye still dripping with the salty sea locked with his own. He caught his mouth watering. His tongue swept over his upper lip as a fork nested between his thumb and forefinger. An unthinkable urge overwhelmed him, to discard the fork, take the fish, paw it, sniff the reflective scales, and tear it apart, the pieces of it clinging to his teeth steeped in salmon innards. How undignified...he thought disgustedly as he opened his eyes, blurred by nausea. Groggily, he threw off the heaps of linen onto the foot of the king-sized bed, cursing the cold air that trickled in from a partially open window. Realizing not even the servants would be awake at this hour, he stumbled towards the source of biting wind and with half-concealed self- consciousness at actually performing a menial task by himself, shut the window and drew the curtains. He would die before his executives saw him like this, staggering like one who had far too much to drink. Not that he had any wine for the last few DAYS, craving milk as if it were an addiction, his employees taking every chance to look at him the wrong way, which made him increasingly irate, which sharpened the craving for the drink.  
  
Those same pangs gnawed at his gut now. He squeezed the curtain in tightened fists on which the sweat ran down. They say he never bled, shed tears...or perspire. Like an ice statue brimming with perfection at the lack of having anything to sweat over. But now, he was sweating like a hog.  
  
He needed milk and he needed it now.  
  
The wine glass left a white ring on the bedside table emblazoned with the company's insignia. It had been sitting there throughout the night, the horrific stench that attacked his senses registering only just at that moment. Imagine the bacteria breeding in that white ring. It was a culture fit for Hojo and his colleagues and a petri dish. But it didn't belong to them..it was HIS milk, his bacteria-infested milk, his milk that didn't sit quite right in the crystal wine glass and his milk that was screaming to be consumed. He grasped it with as much zeal as he had for the corporation itself, tilted the glass in which he was too intoxicated at the moment to see his reflection, and let the night-old milk trickle down his throat, instantly trading divine ecstasy for an unprecedented nausea that kept his hand clutched to his stomach as he practically staggered to the bathroom. And by then it had subsided to a mere wringing of that organ, allowing him to regain some of his lost dignity.  
  
Rufus pushed the lightswitch on with one hand, the other pressed against the side of his soaking head. On top of all this, morning breath deteriorated the wringing into a slew of insufferable gymnastics that the half-digested food bubbled to the throat, and plunged back into his stomach, leaving the rear of his mouth raw from the acid spurt which left behind the most revolting taste. This is all_I need right now, he growled mentally, reaching for the gold-plated handle and pulling the medecine cabinet open. He grabbed his toothbrush from the shelf, when he happened to glance...at...his..reflection.  
  
What in all hell?  
  
Patches of abnormally thick hair lay all over the sides of his head and his neck. With an imperceptibly trembling hand that was likewise shod in hair, he felt under his shirt.....there should have been much less hair than there was when he felt his chest, thick with patches of entangled hair, almost like...like..animal fur. The headache increased tenfold. The milk craving and the nausea it induced shot up at incapacitating speeds. Dropping the toothbrush he ransacked the medecine cabinet, grabbing a bottle of Tylenol and an electric razor.  
  
"With the price I paid for this import this had better work," he snarled, downing the medecine and immediately after, assaulting the hair with the razor, madly shearing all of it in unpredicted strokes that left a pile of fur at his feet. Once done, he examined himself in the mirror again, to his angry horror, beholding whiskers that grew out of his face. He touched them gingerly, half-frozen in perturbed shock, in immediate revulsion at these long fine fibers that was just a result of a vivd nightmare. He could prove it to himself: with sour irritaiton he grabbed them in a bunch and pulled, yelling at the pang of pain that subsided with the ever-increasing headache....and the ever-growing revelation... Revolted, panicked, and scared as all hell, Rufus slammed the cabinet, removing this face he saw..this face that was his own. But how?  
  
How else?  
  
Kicking the clumps of fur away into a corner, he flung open the door, stalking out of the bathroom with a furious scowl. That backstabbing viper would be giving him rapid answers unless ehe wanted the Turks calling at her lab with a pack of starved Houndoom. An ease returned. Why not a toxin in her glass? She had coerced him into signing that contract..why shouldn't she sign that same contract with the Devil? Whatever the means, her term of employment under Shin- Ra/Silph Inc was drawing to a close.  
  
The very thought of her demise induced a tranqiuil wave that mitigated the migraine.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The hulking creature laying in the middle of the entrance hallway adorned with luxurious paintings of famous economic giants whose names became synonymous with gross wealth as well as rampant corruption, growled at the pungent scent of an intruder descending the finely varnished stairway that spiralled downward from an artificial paradise of lush carpet and draped banners bearing the crimson and gold, the emblem of an empire.  
  
So the foe fouled its glory with its presence . A natural foe, at that, one that had been ingrained in its mind the day it was born behind glass walls hanging there for a purpose it never found out, as it was beaten in its short youth its brain capacity shrunk proportionally until they reduced it to a machine, a machine that knew how to obey and only obey its one command: kill.  
  
The black dog rolled over on its side and heaved itself on its paws, its fangs wedged together in a vicious snarl. It crouched in attack position, its glaring eyes piercing the blackness. The moment it heard the intruder enter the room, the death machine lunged, its claws scraping the polished hardwood floor, ramming headlong into the pricey furniture as it slackened its frothing jaws, readied to deal instant death with a savage bite.  
  
The master's voice.  
  
"DOWN, Dark Nation," growled Rufus as viciously as the dog, that slowed down, though still snarling, letting out a low, hateful bark and eyeing his master as a dog eyes a cat. Rufus' ice-hard gaze stabbed into the dog, a grinding glare that signalled to the target that there would be physical retribution for this unwanted transgression, but, by some peculiarity, he'd sooner beat his whores than the dog. That much respect he granted it. And besides...the glare made as much impact, if not more, as the hand did. Dark Nation realized that this was his master, and it stalked into its sleeping area, the scent of cat still hanging on its quaking nose.  
  
The brute left him doubtful. The President sniffed the air. Surely he did not smell like one of those beasts even though his eyes told him that.....He absolutely refused to admit this rubbish. Even if this was happening to him, he would force the answer out of Ivy, this incident would be over, and he could resume his life and erase this happening from the annals of his memory.  
  
He rammed the twin doors of his private study open, his medium build in discord with the stormy tread of someone on a rampage. He groped for the lightswitch and it illumined the room and inflamed the ache to a crushing that bowled carelessly over every lobe of his brain, and he stumbled across the room, clamping his head between his palms, squeezing it like a vice which did nothing to alleviate it.  
  
"This is what I get for giving into a threat," he growled beneath taut breath, rooting the tips of his fingers on the edge of the desk to steady himself. "The poison probably wasn't even lethal...how would she benefit by killing me?" She baited you and you fell for it...and you call yourself the mastermind of this..He ground his teeth that scratched against each other. An unnatural feeling, as if the canine was more pointed than usual...Empire. They formed into a victorious grimace that his folly erased and cast behind it. Where was your mind when you held that glass? Did you think for a minute that an outsider only remotely affiliated with the company could be trusted? If you learned anything from your jackass of a father, it was to never concede to outsiders.  
  
After a struggle with gravity he reached the cordless phone on the corner of a glass desk and yanked it off of the cradle, fiercely punching the numbers and throwing the phone to his ear. In almost schizophrenic contrast, he regained composure swiftly, not letting a dash of refinement that had been lacking in his public life as of late escape in his groomed tone: "Ivy, there is something of dire consequence that must be discussed immediately." Nothing but the repeated ring of the phone. Either she was absent on business or she was expecting this and had pulled out before she sunk too deep. "Ivy?" His patience thinned. The dormant ice cracked. Nothing on the other line. Silence. Breathing. Hers? The dog's. Bitch. Answer. The. Phone. The normally delicate grip tightened to a vicious hold. Patience sifted through the hourglass like gravitating sand grains. On the sixth ring nothing. Seventh. Eighth. Why hadn't she answered? Patience buckled. And it finally broke. He screamed across the other line, the resulting sound bearing no semblance to the words he thought he had formed.  
  
Rufus caught himself. He let the phone drop, and prodded his throat with his fingers, staring fixatedly in unnerved silence at the vast halls. That sound...that inhuman roar....could it be possible that that was his? The blazing ice of his eyes bore a hole through the darkness into the next room. Could it be Dark Nation? No, dogs bark, they don't roar. Nor do they hiss. Hiss...hiss...cats hiss. He looked at his reflection in the desk. It mocked him. It jeered him. It scared him. He felt the whiskers. Cats had whiskers. He ran his finger over them. Hair was on the fingers. Thick hair. Cat fur. Impossible.... The craving..milk and fish..they like milk, don't they? They like fish. The wild ones like fish. They all like fish.  
  
Without prior warning, Rufus all of a sudden smashed a raging fist into the glass. There was a massive crash and a hiss so feline that Dark Nation with one furious bound clawed madly at the closed doors. Rufus didn't hear its frenzy, staring with horrified eyes at this result of his driven rage, and he cursed his own rashness, this loss of level-headedness for which he was legendary. He paid the price of blood. The shards sliced into his skin and the blood flowed. He jerked the flesh ribbons away, clamping his chopped fingers between the other, smearing the blood on the tufts of fur. Droplets dropped in sticky globs on the scattered shards, blotting out his reflection. It was gone. The cat-man was gone.  
  
He rose slowly still holding the lacerated hand. Pure pain radiated from the wounds, but the migraine outlived it. It pulverized the inner caverns of his head, not even receding when he dripped a mess of blood splotches towards the bathroom past the enraged hulk that snapped at his heels. Again it was ignored. The headache was the culprit. No, it had not even the decency to let him alone just for that one moment, relentless and brutal, getting worse when something else got worse, reaching its zenith when he unsuccessfully tried to exctract the embedded pieces of glass. For the first time he wanted to succumb to a buried weakness.  
  
Rufus Shin-Ra fell to his knees on the blood-spattered floor.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The square box was a curious thing.  
  
It whispered and shouted, dazzled vision and pummelled hearing, tricked the brain into thinking there was someone else with you but in the end was just another source of cancerous radiation. The flashing pictures were strangely transfixing, like the alluring light in an insect trap, and Red peered straight ahead at the pale glow of the television, his chin resting slanted on his paws.  
  
An ad here, a commercial there, a recap of the earlier night's news scrolled across the screen in blocky capital letters: survivor of Pewter disaster found, Kanto researcher arrested for assisting Jouto researcher's escape from Goldrenrod City Prison, Viridian survivors relocate to Cerulean..  
  
Red's head shot up as a muffled pounding assault his flattened ears. Someone knocking...this early? His biological clock told him the sun wasn't even up yet. That could only mean...it was urgent, whatever it was. He headed out the door, diving down the stairs and landing in front of the door with a soft thud. Leaning his head over, Red pulled the door open with his jaws, a single eye falling on the battered humans.  
  
One of them had her hand poised to knock, raised in midair, but didn't quite make it. The one next to her fell first, and she followed almost simultaneously, passing out on the doorstep. Left without explanation of why they were here and why they were covered in blood, he dragged them through the doorway by their ripped clothing and shut the door, the house silent once again.  
  
From the bushes, Brock choked on his guilt. He knew all too well why there was blood on them. Because of him. With acrid loathing Brock stared at his hands, that had so recently been claws. Claws that were designed to kill. Claws that could have KILLED THEM. If only he STAYED human, they wouldn't be hurt like that. But they were. And he was to blame.  
  
But he didn't...mean it. He could...show he didn't mean it, right? Tell them he didn't know what he was doing, that he was sorry.  
  
Was that going to cut it?  
  
If it didn't, he deserved it. All of it.  
  
Brock crawled out of the foliage, callous to the red lines the bushes scraped across his shoulders. At this point, he was beyond pain, physical pain, anyway. Fractures in his hide, that marred his body with scars and unhealable wounds, were so much less than the agonies of a razed soul.  
  
He moved towards the house, a door he once found friendly, a plug to stop the hollow hole that was left of his own door, a door that couldn't be told apart from the miles of ashes that cloaked his hometown.  
  
Ashes..  
  
The fire..  
  
Cindy's crushed legs under the burning house..  
  
The smoke smothered her tears..  
  
Her body smoldered in the fire and lay with the ashes.  
  
Tommy would rot under the tree.  
  
Would he one day see his yellowed skull staring back at him with that unexpressive grimace that all humans show when their flesh creeps away leaving only the naked bone?  
  
Brock barely felt himself take that shape which was becoming familiar, natural, as if he'd been a Pokémon all his life. He roughly grappled with the doorknob, his claws not gripping the way his hands would. He was good with his hands. He'd sewn and kneaded and stirred for as long as he could remember, but a different story with claws. They, like hands, were made for a purpose. Ivy..she designed this, didn't she? She made it this way on purpose.  
  
It was so much easier to break down the door than use a doorknob.  
  
The door fell with a clatter of wood on wood, and the demon stole inside, the scent of human blood instantly invading his nostrils. With a grunt he dove for the source, then stopped an inch away from the blood source.  
  
"HHRGRASHHH...MREEGHHSTIE..." he growled. With all of his inhuman will he controlled himself, convincing, lying to himself that he wasn't thirsty, that he had no need of their blood. He was parched. A drop...a drop, all he needed..they would never miss it....."HHGRRARGHH??!" Brock reeled in fear, in fear of himself, of what he would do, straining, forcing himself to be repulsed by the blood, the iron-tasting globs of red blood. Maybe..he could take his own, satisfy the demon half of him. Who the hell was he kidding? He was fully a monster, not only half. Stupid...he was stupid for even thinking that. His body revenged itself and the irrepressible pangs of thirst attacked him in full force. God, what was wrong with him? He was here to help THEM, not to help himself, not to fulfill his own barbaric thirst for blood.  
  
Fighting the animal instincts with maternal ones, he pulled himself away from the blood source, forcing himself towards the kitchen, to get them a drink. They say you died after a few days without water. They couldn't get much in the Rocket dungeons, the way they treated their prisoners. They were lucky to still be alive, going that long without water. He didn't dare get a glass, for fear of shattering it and alerting the red Pokémon, or worse, Ash's mother, and emerged from the kitchen with his scaled palms cupped and full of tap water. Stealing like a shadow among the shadows, he approached where the two unconscious humans lay, and lifted it to their mouths, the liquid pouring off of his scales down their throats. Not exactly pure, but it was water nonetheless.  
  
Misty's vision slowly came into focus: blood-red eyes, pointed fangs in a mouth half-opened with concern, marring its purpose with the existence of the forked tongue, all on a head stripped of its hair, gently..gently holding her chin with its clawed hand. It snapped.  
  
"Br..Brock.." she gasped hoarsely, unable to move, whether out of raw terror or raw joy. For all she knew, Brock could be waiting for them to wake up so they'd be conscious when he killed them so they could feel his pain..A tinge of distrust still lingered, and Brock sensed it, in the way she looked at him, the fear in her voice, and he shrunk from them, his claws shielding his bald head.  
  
Ash worsened the situation.  
  
"Get away! You're not gonna hurt Misty and me anymore!"  
  
"Grrrrragghhhhhhhh....." A guilt-ridden growl leaked from the darkness of the house. The blazing eyes grew fainter as Brock crawled away, desperation and remorse softening the perpetual crimson flames. Misty outstretched a hand but the words were muted, not by her somewhat relieved hoarseness but by the throaty roar that penetrated all corners of the house.  
  
Red stood in the entrance to the kitchen, jaws clamped over a roll of bandages. He was readied to attack, instinct and years of battle rendering his hostile reaction automatic. His tail lashed through the darkness, the whipping flame casting light on the face of the intruder.  
  
Firelight..fire..it scorched Pewter... it had to kill..kill the thing that produced it. It would kill Misty..Ash...  
  
Not if he killed it first.  
  
Brock hurled his scaled body at the biding enemy, who dodged with a well- timed leap, swivelling to avoid the stabbing claws that plunged into the floor. Incensed, Brock came at him a death-wielding cyclone, cutting the hide of its foreleg to the bone with the shoulder spikes. A howl shredded the tranquility of early morning and stirred the dry, bloodshot eyes crusted with morning stars and hurting for more sleep...  
  
Brock had him pinned, scenting the red blood leaking from the wound. Overwhelmed by thirst, he bent over the bubbling wound, leaning his lips to the cleansing liquid, taking a drawn-out slurp as the animal winced in pain and Ash and Misty paling at the revolting sound. The slurp. The whine of the creature, the faint pat the blood made when it dribbled off his lips and onto the floor.  
  
Misty tried to shut out reality, wanted to blind and deafen herself to the truth, so she wouldn't see nor hear the vampire wearing the body of her friend. But in the end, he was that vampire.  
  
Why can't you fight it, Brock? You always did the right thing in the end. You always HELPED people... Why are you hurting them, now?! Why can't you fight it?!  
  
What if you can't? Maybe you WANT to be like this. Maybe I was wrong in trying to find you. Did I think I'd find the Brock we all knew? The Brock that gave Charmander away to Ash of all people just because he thought Ash would take care of it better? The Brock that gave Vulpix back to Suzie just because it wasn't really his? The Brock that took care of the Pokémon at Ivy's laboratory..?  
  
Ivy. She started all this...Her and Team Rocket's boss...  
  
...He's the monster...one of 'em..there's two...the other one's Brock-- that's Brock, right? But Brock doesn't drink blood...Brock doesn't hurt anyone...he just chases girls and stuff and...  
  
..Drink their blood.  
  
Holy Christ..  
  
"SHHHRRGHHURRZRHIE..." Brock suddenly dropped the limp animal, his claws quivering with terror. What_was_he_DOING? Hastily he wiped the stray blood from his mouth with his scales, and backed away from his supper. The bright red creature, with its long hair hanging from either side of its muzzle, the way its closed eye stirred the pain in its soul and spilled it from its face...God, the hulking beast reminded him of Suzie..guiltless and shameless because she belonged to that perfect race: normal living beings. So did this thing. He had no right to profane it. No right at all.  
  
Brock crept away from the beast, its chest falling irregularly from the lack of blood. The bandages were still on the floor. He crawled to get them and closed his eyes and held his nose while attempting to dress the unsterilized wound with one hand to prevent the smell and sight of blood from driving him to drain it dry. The bandages ended up being all over. And by then the beast had recovered enough to stand and bore a hole in the other's body. A spark of controlled bloodlust engulfed his bestial eye, and the scuffling of his claws were heard quick on the floor, the bending flame at the tip of his tail grew zigzagged through the darkness as Red pounced for the enemy's chest, consumed with the Limit Break..  
  
When the light almost incinerated both their corneas.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The griffin traced infinity over Pallet, its white shadow dissolving the melded shadows heralding a premature dawn...and a new Hell.  
  
Brock tumbled out of the flooded doorway and onto his back, his claws almost plunging into his eyeballs, the agonizing burn tempting him to make one quick swipe that would leave him sightless and free of this awful pain that was otherwise inescapable. No need to rip them out. Just one scratch and he'd forever be in darkness. He would no longer have to see..anything, anyone.....  
  
It vanished. Brock took his claws from his eyes, everything again shrouded in the shadows of early morning when the sun hasn't yet broken the clouds. All that remained of the vicious light was a shining figure radiating the same pallid hue as the portal he came through.  
  
The figure descended, showered in light that emanated a glorious resplendence. Unquestionable purity, as its blunt-clawed feet landed on the ground that somehow quivered in inferiority. Brock could do little but stare at first, stare at the stainless hands, free of blood, white as the light that spiralled around him in reverent obedience, the locks of hair fine as a cirrus cloud that swirled around his shoulders with the weight of a falling feather, a tranquil smile aglow with the peace of heaven, the sleeveless robe he wore that never brushed the ground, and the soft tail that blew like a reed in a a spring wind.  
  
In its presence.....Brock felt so..low. He knew it was a Pokémon. The tail, claws...but in that Pokémon, Brock beheld his inverse reflection. And then he stared down at himself, scarred skin, bald, naked, disgraced by friend and enemy, a labrat, and....he felt roughly at his throat. Oh, yeah. Unintelligible. Until he transformed. Then other...humans..would be able to UNDERSTAND him, at least. But for now...the only words that could be heard clear were in his ever-turbulent thoughts.  
  
By now, Ash, Misty were able to crawl out on their hands and knees, the light still triggering a million explosions in their eyes. The dog followed, one paw clamped over his remaining eye, the other letting him hobble out the doorway into the muted darkness. But the darkness was not sufficient to protect them from being sensed. It sensed them. .The inner filth. The scum that claimed authority over they who by right were the real sovereigns. A frown so brief that it was hardly visible through the darkness clashed with the serenity of his soul. For now, though, he did nothing and looked upon Brock with a smile so affable that he backed up and growled cautiously.  
  
"Do not fear. I am one of you."  
  
Sure enough, Brock beheld sharpened teeth. A mark of an animal. But was this truly an animal? The way it spoke clearly, intelligibly just like a human? The way it postured himself like a human? Maybe it was only half-human. But that half-human was enough to be wary of. Any minute now it would take a PokéBall and throw it...Any minute now he'd be in someone's posession, someone's property...  
  
"This generation will see the restoration of our race," the calming voice of the man-angel flowed through the air, easing the warranted fear somewhat. "I, Angelon.....hold the secret of salvation." Brock's mouth opened partly, the bloodied teeth jutting out from jet-black gums. Salvation...he didn't even remember what the word meant..It was coming back to him, hazy, fuzzy---he searched through his brain, ran a blackened hand along his skull- -why couldn't he---? It was something..good, he knew that, but.....  
  
His bloodied lower lip trembled and he plowed doubting claw marks through the dirt.  
  
Am I becoming like...him?  
  
Brock grabbed his tail and held it for a few seconds, half-expecting it to scale over and grow spikes and broaden in thickness. Angelon watched him, gradually feeding off of Brock's deplorable plight. He smiled as the vexing sun shines far too brightly in the heavy summers. There was a baiting hope in the orbs of light. Brock reached for it, with the feeble thought that there might still be something left to grab onto at the bottom of the Pit. Wait...that was it..to be saved...rescued...from the Pit....THAT was what it was---and he hung his lowered head to one side, knowing that it could never be. He gave a coarse, embittered laugh and stood to half his full height.  
  
You're wasting your time---I'm way beyond salvation.  
  
He batted the idea away with a claw.  
  
Lets say I COULD be saved..what would you do, purify me? He shook his bowed head in morose hopelessness. There's no washing off this blood..He bore his tainted hands to his reversed reflection, who wore the clashing image of a frown on his lips.  
  
"You act as if one chooses deliverance or damnation...that is far from the truth." His gaze now turned imperious, God's compelling messenger with a holy sword in one indisputable hand . "You MUST attain universal salvation---" The halo encompassed his body, and he began to melt into the whiteness, leaving Brock to combat the burning ache in his brain from the onslaught of light.  
  
Come. The gates have opened.  
  
The white hand beckoned through the sea of light. The burn receded to a sharp tingling, and he stumbled into the immersing whiteness, that churned in a vortex ahead of him. A portal. He felt like he was slipping out of his body and swallowed by his mind, completely unblurred by the excess chemicals, the haunting instincts, the brutal truth separated and closed off from this whole other dimension: blissful isolation.  
  
Blissful to the one immersed in it.  
  
"Brock.....?" Misty lurched on her hands, the heel of her palms burying into the dirt. She found him to lose him again. Maybe for good this time. Sweat coursed like cataracts down her shoulders, and she worked up the last bits of strength to half-stand, Ash a wobbling lump next to her--forget standing, he could barely crawl with his broken leg, and somehow they pushed their limits far enough to get close to the portal---inches away-- before a quaking roar froze them stiff. The chill of some dark shadow gliding over them stopped their breathing entirely, lest it be the last one they took.  
  
The shadow landed with wings folded around its chest like a biding Golbat, a wart-covered bump positioned sentry-like on its left paw. Both of their forms shuddered involuntarily at the crash of the reptile's gigantic claws on the ground. It balked at the front of the portal, its head casted down and in the opposite direction.  
  
I expected him to be trusting, but this is lunacy. I know this trickery...I used to use such means myself.  
  
The eyeless hulk doubled in size as it spread its naked wings. Its cry was one of protest that had lost any hint of attempting to be respectful or formal.  
  
Well boss, where else are we supposed to go? We're sure as hell not going to risk our necks and stay here.  
  
An affirmative croak from the raised bump on the outstretched wing.  
  
Yeah sir, those kids---little runts're going to catch us if we don't split.  
  
Yes...I am...aware of that.. There were some breaks in his roar. For the infant space of a second his bestial eyes gazed straight into the terrified brown ones of the bruised boy in the dust. The most feeble of memories pushed for the surface and kept its head above water long enough for Giovanni to feel the guilt seeping into his black heart before the memory drowned and he turned painfully towards the light and didn't look back. The stranger is the lesser of two evils. Go.  
  
The light engulfed them, and Misty and Ash were alone with the dog. Misty was unable to do anything but watch in growing despair, and Ash unable to do anything but resolve in his mind why he thought he had seen his long-dead father trapped in the revolting eyes of this monster that was once Team Rocket's boss.  
  
But maybe he was just seeing things.  
  
*~*~*  
  
It was hopeless, really.  
  
Hopeless....  
  
Cid choked on some saliva and blood that had gotten caught in his throat with his eyes shut tightly and his hands clenched tightly into the ground ahead of him........ His teeth were clenched hard against each other as sweat crawled down his face and he breathed hard, trying with all his mind to keep the dragon from hurting him more... trying to make him give in......Damn.... it......  
  
You can't hold on much longer....  
  
Cid gave out a gasp as his hands dug in deeper, the claws burrowing into the ground from the tips of his fingers.....  
  
Sure I can.... He thought back with a wry, half-sarcastic smile.  
  
He wrenched his hands out of the ground, clutching them to each other and holding them to his chest as it was racked with hard, forced breathing. He opened his eyes halfway, staring at the ground with unmatched intensity trying to ignore the..... voices... in his head.... stupid.... voice......  
  
It would be simpler and quicker than he had initially thought. Such minimal effort to subdue such a dangerous subject... It was almost too easy. His menacing step made little noise on the ground, the predatory stalker, always under radar. In many ways, animalistic, but what separated him, a monster, and the man on his knees below him, was that the former at least appeared human, if only a bare semblance. Whereas this dragon and the man bound to him...did not.  
  
He levelled the tranquilizer with Cid's shoulder, as removed as before, fully aware of his plight but giving no damn about it as he took aim and prepared to sedate the target. Something at the back of his mind.... as Cid tried to lay the dragon under siege, something seemed dangerous.... a predator.... goddamn instincts, why wouldn't they leave him...... Leave him....  
  
He jerked his head to the side, just before he heard a loud, whizzing sound next to his ear. He fell to the ground with a cringe of pain, the dirt road of Nibelheim hard and unforgiving underneath his back.  
  
His eyes snapped open, both human except for pupils that seemed slightly more narrow than they should have been and an aqua hue at the sides that seemed to be attempting to encompass the rest of the eye....  
  
"Son of a...." he whispered, then rolled over just as another tranquilizer hit the ground where his chest had just been. Breathing hard, he looked up at HIM, and his face suddenly transformed into a mask of pure fury as he staggered to his feet and gave a dogged lunge at his tormentor.  
  
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!!!!"  
  
Maybe he would have been successful at ripping Hojo to shred with the dragon's borrowed claws had Draconis Rex not decided to burden him with something else at that moment. Weakened by the sudden, uncontrolled outburst, he suddenly heard a guttural laugh in his head--then a rip, a crunch, and a sickeningly sharp pain as a pair of blue-scaled wings erupted from his back.  
  
With a desperate cry, he crashed to the ground.  
  
Hojo halted the volley of syringes long enough to stare this object of pathetic fraility down.  
  
"I think not," he answered flatly. "In your weakened state I doubt you are in a position to lay a scratch on me, let alone kill. Besides....." he added, re-loading his weapon with his passive gaze still rooted to the prostrate man, if you could actually call him that anymore. "I have taken certain ......precautions," he allowed himself a calm chuckle as he took aim once more, taking note of the leather-like wings protruding painfully from Cid's back. "Draconis Rex seems to be rebelling. As you can see," he nodded to the wings, "it is as persistent as yourself. If you do not submit, it will find ways to make you." He squeezed the trigger again, another round of syringes flying out from the barrel of the dart gun. His voice took on a crueler tone, marked with the half-smile that crossed his pallid face. "But you already knew that....didn't you."  
  
He's right, you know. Cid felt himself turning onto his back, onto those.... stupid....wings.... FUCK.  
  
"Get them OFF," he found himself muttering aloud, gritting his teeth as he sat up, putting his clawed hands to his aching forehead.  
  
You want control, don't you? He could hear the dragon's voice harsh and sharp in his brain. Here you have it. But as long as you don't accept me... they're yours.  
  
"Mother fucking----DO YOU HEAR ME?!?" He yelled aloud, standing to his feet and staring at the ground as he spoke. He could make out the outlines of his bare, clawed, somewhat scaled feet.  
  
He didn't get a response.  
  
And for some reason, it scared the hell out of him.  
  
Hojo raised his nose into the air, his nostrils catching the scent of an impalpable, yet tangible, scent: the smell of fear. "This runs contradictory to my asessment," he stated with slight hint of disappointment at this discovery. "I did not think this subject would be so susceptible to such a weak mental condition..it is natural for some error to be expected, but not of this magnitude. But it is trivial.."  
  
Show fear, show vulnerability, show weakness, show that you are unfit. No doubt...the human had its flaws. In any case, he would hit him before long.  
  
Cid looked up, his eyes containing a hint of fear. But only a hint. No, he wouldn't let himself be intimidated by THIS wacko... in fact, he should be relieved he wasn't hearing that stupid Draconack Rexwhats-it's-face anymore.... even though he knew it was probably lurking in the deep recesses of his subconscious... maybe finding more ways to trick him.... In any case, having full control of his body after so much turmoil was a welcome change, and he let out a deep breath as he looked up.  
  
But he didn't have control over his body. He had control of some of his own... and then some of that stupid monster's. He was reminded of this as he saw the look that Hojo gave him, that condescending, emotionless stare, and those cold eyes with toneless words....  
  
"Who the hell are you calling a subject?!" He managed to get out of the dragon's half-rebellious vocal chords. He was too drained to feel surprise when it came out as a string of growled syllables.  
  
"You must forgive me, I am afraid I'm not versed in draconic tongue," he answered, a warped grin showing that he drew some delight from Cid's agony, from his inabilty to communicate..hahaa..destroy that, the link between the human species and the rest was severed. Beyond that were unintelligble growls, primitive, primal attempts at speaking formed by an underdeveloped nervous system..that alone justified his classification...but much less communication meant when compared to the genetic structure. There was the proof of the difference, from which all else was derived, the specific traits that barred human from other animal and other animal from human. Soon...this one would accept his assimilation and perhaps its other, more feral half. It would be more feasible to let the dragon conquer him, as he had plunged the last of his tranquilizers into Gaia, too dead to retaliate at the sharp needle embedded in its crust. Not at all concerned at it--knowing full well he couldn't resupply at the lab, he dismissed it as minor.  
  
Wh-what the frikkin' HELL?!? Cid's eyes widened as he heard Hojo's words, freezing instantly as he realized what he had missed a moment before: his lack of discernible speech. He was shocked for a moment, but then a strange calm came over him as he began to walk forward on the dragon's unsteady feet and made his way towards the mad scientist that had started this all, and maybe who was the one who could end it...  
  
Or at least he could end Hojo.  
  
Old man, you are SO dead. It didn't seem to faze him, the fact that he had already spent, and wasted, his last tranquilizer. The capsules of dark liquid would most likely have no effect on the advancing subject: His only visible defense was what he had sold his body and soul to ages ago.  
  
Quite an ample defense once one acclimated to the periods of violent retching that rejected any nourishment and spasmodic mutations that left the physical body a travesty of humanity and destroyed the host's ability to reason according to its own ethical principles.  
  
It was preposterous to think that the subject would bring him down. Standing calmly as ever, the dart gun disappeared in his labcoat pocket and he simply stood there, scrutinizing its every, staggered, awkward move it made.  
  
"Do you really think you are capable of killing me?" he questioned with a taunting smirk. "You'd have a better chance of reverting to a 'normal' state, which, the chances of which are little more than zero percent."  
  
Cid grinned in response to Hojo's taunt, his half-draconic eyes almost as cold as Hojo's. Zero percent? He came uncomfortably close to the mad scientist, bringing one of his clawed hands up in the air. Oh, yeah, you're REALLY fried.  
  
Violence seemed like the best solution to his problems at this point. He really couldn't imagine facing anybody like the way he was now, and what if that fucking dragon started spazzing out on him again? Nah, the best way to calm his nerves would be to spill some blood that seriously needed spilling.  
  
Too bad he didn't realize this new outlet for his fury was yet another one of the dragon's "gifts."  
  
Hojo peered up through lenses clouded with the vapor of hot dragon breath from the subject being so close in proximity. The same unchanging, unconcerned look, that would probably remain unchanged even if Cid had divided him at the scalp. He pushed on the rim of his glasses, mentally noting how rapidly this bodily assimilation was progressing. Draconis Rex was a vengeful one, it seemed... Perfectly suited for his purposes.  
  
And perhaps that's what pissed off Cid the most, how this little hunched- back freak of nature could control so much through so little action... like he wanted to be God or something. Or at least destroy God... not that Cid was religious or anything--he'd usually fallen asleep during any church mass he'd ever been dragged to, usually by some girlfriend that dumped him a week later. In any case, he hated that jeering face. Hated it like hell.  
  
Something came to mind then, something he'd been wanting to spit in the old man's face for a while.  
  
"So," he managed to growl low and long. "I guess I deserve this..... just as much as Vincent...?"  
  
For a moment Hojo could do nothing but stand there tight-lipped and smart at the blow. But when he spoke again, his voice, now a lethal calmness, betrayed a fury- impassioned ire threatening to spill over the lip of a volcano and incinerate the one who had dared to daunt him. A fury that couldn't have been his own. What Cid said had sparked some terrible reaction that lay dormant in the black depths of his twisted soul, and though Cid could acridly laugh in his head about this victory, he wasn't aware that he had evoked a terrible wrath.  
  
"Who are you..." He began, the irritation rising to anger at an alarming rate, though the surface was undisturbed. "...to pry into these matters? They are not yours to question." It ignited. With a grabbing motion far too swift for his age he had his spidery fingers wrapped around the half-dragon's throat, his fingers lightly pressing into the scaled hide. "You are an audacious one, indeed, to liberate the skeletons in the closet..." With ONE HAND he began to choke the creature that should, by default, be much, MUCH stronger than the old bag of bones, tightening at each gag the other managed to cough out. "In doing that you question what I did to him...." Tighter. "But let me clarify this slight misunderstanding, Draconis Rex..." The Mako gaze that now filled both his eyes burned with hellish flame..the hue of his flesh began to take on a sick, sallow green as the volume of the scientist's voice shot up into a hate-overflowed scream, "What I did to that goddamned Turk was JUSTICE!!!!" He rattled the hapless dragon-man with inhuman strength and subhuman brutality. "He got to her first, yes he did....I simply took my rightful revenge...justice, THAT WAS ALL IT WAS." He hurled Cid onto the slab of hard ground, the rage receding into his detatched calmness while Cid just lay and stared, stared while the joints of the dragon's wings pushed aggravatingly in his back and the stuff Hojo had in his greasy hands seeped through him like a quick- working poison that corroded the fight in him and reduced his screaming protests to an almost infantile whimper as the toxin sucked him dry of strength. And it was in the flickering darkness the dragon's voice echoed louder than ever.  
  
Ready or not.  
  
Cid managed to mouth a hateful curse of loathing when the dragon finally wrested control, the dragon that had power over him, the dragon that now emerged with spread wings from the body of the crumpled human and roared with cocky defiance. Once again, the beast mastered the man. The weak, pathetic man that could only prove he was strong when he had a handload of Materia and a sharp weapon in his fist.  
  
The scaled beast thrust himself into the wind, a massive wake of air prompting Hojo to glance up in complete satisfaction...of this creation of the Planet that made the skies cower with its presence. How could that piteous race, human, deny this power? Say it was not theirs..the pilot..what was his name? Ah...it mattered not...he should be elated, sharing the power of this wind dragon.  
  
He held the sky in his hands, and he only found it sufficient to complain. How ungrateful. How human.  
  
He shoult accept it before long. When forced to assimilate, one could resist for only so long...  
  
"The weakness of the human will is a perplexing phenomenon." He followed it. If he had the correct coordinates, Draconis Rex was headed straight for a portal. Everything was falling into place. With almost negligible opposition. He clutched his frail chin between thumb and index finger. "All is proceeding with such smoothnesss that it is inevitable something will go wrong..." The blue dot suddenly vanished. Gaia and Earth were at equilibrium. His presence in Kanto would surely block any intrepid miscreant that aimed to stop him. Then again, what did he care about opposition? It was inconsequential with Draconic Rex in total control. Disregard Shin-Ra machinery that drained the host town dry of gil, a method that not only destroyed the economy but produced an inferior threat compared to this biological doomsday weapon. Ah, yes....it could very well rise to that...but to call it a weapon would exxagerate its actual purpose. It was an unwitting and unwilling tool of science. "It is probable due to the high concentration of humans that Draconic Rex will cause...substantial damage upon arrival.." Hojo muttered. "What a pity...billions of gil in property lost." He smirked. "The President will be quite furious...the very stress will bring the process closer to initiation."  
  
*~*~*  
  
It was time to move on. The memory was getting painful and the bodies were starting to smell of rot. Some of them got shovels and dug one giant pit, throwing the dead in when they found them, the bodies too mutilated to identify. They dug for different reasons... A few wanted to see their comrades decay as one as they had once thrived as one, while most wanted to just rid the air of the stench. But whatever the reason, they had to be buried. Impersonal burial as it was, heaps of charred, mutilated corpses that weren't cognizable as the humans they were, most not even whole, parts of corpses, a head missing there, a scream and a thud when someone found the head ruthlessly crushed under scorched plaster, and it would get thrown lightning-quick into the grave and never find the body from which it was missing.  
  
A few of them managed to leave the wreckage before the surviving executive rounded them up and set them gravedigging. The Grunts stood on a high point overlooking the ruins. One of them had a field viewing mechanism, scanning the immediate area. The work was tedious and boresome and every other negatitivity that surrounds a mundane job, but it was better than being around those bodies.  
  
The other one, however, wasn't so sure.  
  
The Grunt without the device stood tensely behind him, every puff of wind or rustle of grass whipping his hand to his PokéBall, his head darting ratlike away from the most unsuspicious of corners. The first one looked at him from behind the visor without removing it from his face and muttered,  
  
"Fate can't deal us a worser hand, ya know. It's over. They can't do nothing to us now."  
  
"Yeah?" the other one snapped, the shadow that his cap brim normally masked fading as he upturned his broad chin and bore terrified, desperate eyes. "You tell that hellspawn when it comes 'round here. There's 'gonna be another one and it'll wipe us all out."  
  
A third Grunt hiked somberly up the incline, the weight of his trudging boots wrecking the solemn calm and stirring both Rockets on the edge to rip their PokéBalls off their belts to a readied position. They only gradually eased into non-hostile stance when they saw the black-white-red pattern on his clothing: God, it was hard for them to even trust their own anymore.  
  
This one's gloves was stained with blood from the bodies and stunk with the reek of decay. The gravity in his slumped shoulders and heavy gait signalled bleak news. He halted in front of them, looking this way and that, hesitant in delivering the message. He finally found the guts to look straight at them and give them the report. The look was dead serious.  
  
"We found Wendy. She's gutted clean...it slurped all the meat outta her and left her husk.They got ten more they know..most of 'em Grunts and some higher-ups. Ya can only tell by what they're wearing, they're all so cut up."  
  
Wasn't anything new, the other thought with a lowered head and a tightened bite on chipped molars. Quit dwelling on it 'cause it won't happen again. But in his heart he knew how vulnerable they'd become. They were the dust at the mercy of the wind.  
  
"Like I said, fate screwed us. Screwed Team Rocket. Nothin' else they can do to us." No sign of disturance. No sign of the freak. The lasting calm was almost threatening, but in his mind he was convinced that he was right. He switched off the device and clipped it onto his belt. "It's all clear: we better head down. Might count us as dead." The Rockets nodded in assent and in a disconcerted body, vacated the promontory.  
  
They hadn't reached halfway down the hill when they heard an explosion and a fearsome growl that grated through the outpouring smoke that ejected from the inflamed debris that rocketed out from the center like the shear waves of an earthquake, hailing them like meteorites into the hard earth. A much smaller shape blasted away from view and the quaking corpse of the HQ. The Rockets broke into a mad sprint.  
  
They thought they had witnessed the worst.  
  
The grave was totalled, the half-buried bodies piled up on the surface. The ruins smoldered in electrical fire and ignited gas line, coughing black smoke and spitting the chewed-up remains of the wreckage into the clouds. Gravity hurled another wave of the concrete meteorites into the ground where the bodies lay, connecting with the pitiful masses of flesh, bone, and muscle and crushing the life out of them. The three living dashed into the core of hell and overturned the bodies, laced in blood with the remnants of glass and some lacking their limbs that got strewn around the swelling collection of blood.  
  
"So that was it, huh?" one of them spat, a tower of flame rising above him as a fire spread and roasted the mangled flesh. "Fate had it in for us just once, huh?" The tense growl in his words knifed the other in the gut. The glare he gave him, the intent behind the words was deadly. But death was rampant in this cursed place. There was no need for more. Anger was slowly replaced by despair in all three when they realized that everyone was dead. Dead and burning in hell like the cops and their victims said they would one day. As the fire's appetite grew and devoured the bodies, they let choked breath escape them: they fell on their hands and knees and cursed the gods who beat them while they were down, reduced them to nothingness..them and that lethal shadow streaking across the sky.  
  
Draconis Rex mowed down the obstructing forest and soared into the clouds, leaving the fallen branches broken and bruised. A wind column spiralled across his reptillian body, a tornado without limits, ripping the earth into shredded chunks and hurling it away with tremendous force. He was the Jupiter winds: indomitable and eternal.  
  
Kanto had been scratched by the demon and the lizard. It was about to be maimed by the dragon.  
  
But deep in the death machine's head, the dormant pilot suffered in a haze of nightmares that sprawled from the complete darkness, images shooting through his weakened mind at a maddening pace, images of death and destruction that plagued him worse than the poison that seeped into his veins. It left him somewhere dark and silent, save for the shrieks coming from everywhere in thousands of pounding waves that clashed around him trapping him in an ocean of chaos that sealed him off from the surface and left him ignorant of the blood the dragon so gleefully spilt.  
  
*~*~*  
  
I leave you with that happy, sugary note. Stay tuned for Chapter 19. -_^ 


	19. Rough Winds

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/story by DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
A/N: Hi! Enjoy. ^^  
  
*~*~*  
  
This is the third week this outrage has been going on. Every day my husband frustrates himself and the household more and more. I have about had it. He's deluded with the dream that he will one day have an heir. An accident made him sterile.. I think it was one of those horrid attack dogs that escaped from the cellar.. Ever since then he seeks a worthy heir, one that shares his devotion to the young company. He has become sadly desperate. I think it madness, searching among the most destitute areas with stubborn belief that he will find his heir. I have not seen a day when the Public Safety Maintenance Department does not introduce a vulgar, low-born street urchin through the gate. At best the little filth stays for a half hour before my husband loses his temper and has the Public Safety Maintence Department expel them from the grounds. They, being what they are, have no interest in cultivation: they are rotten weeds that will grow into the poison of society. This one is scarcely no better. He is vulgar like the rest of them, his family has barely a thousand gil to their name, he has not the slightest concept of etiquette, and he sputters these fanciful desires of become an aviator like his brother, who might I add, does not resemble him in the least. They are all bastard children, if you ask my opinion, but my husband persists in instructing them to be like him. I do not understand.....  
  
The dirty creature looks hardly respectable though he has been given a proper bath and wears pressed shirts and trousers when before he was prancing about the estate half-naked. Oh, the horror..this is what becomes of opening the gate to let the lower class infiltrate your fortress. He dares to glare at me with eyes that have seen so many obscenities. They are like his brother's, filled with silly fantasies and all traits of children that must be destroyed as quickly as possible.  
  
Am I conceding to such foolishness? He cannot learn...he will never learn. This urchin will never land more than a menial job in the company. And furthermore, he will never replace my husband. He will never become a Shin-Ra.  
  
--An early diary entry entered by Mrs. Shin-Ra. Found by historians and displayed in the demolished Midgar museum.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 19: Rough Winds  
  
How does one resist the current of a river? If its will is to drown, a man is powerless. Brock was powerless against this river. Though he was not a man anymore. Now it was his choice. He let himself be drowned, dead, dead to the pain of an inescapable reality. And as he felt himself flow with this river, this myriad of light, an aura of total tranquility penetrated the crumbled escarpments of his soul.  
  
And it wasn't right. It wasn't right because it couldn't be real. It wasn't real because he was an escaped lab specimen and the threat of capture lurked behind him and kept him bound to the shadows so they couldn't find him, so they couldn't lock him in that damn glass cube and torture him just because they defined that as his purpose in life. That was the truth, and this lie of liberation was ready to entrap him.  
  
Brock outstretched an arm into the layers of light. The burning blaze bore through them but they didn't burn back. Nothing was ablaze..it should be....his vision should be smoldering in the light..he should be blind...  
  
He touched the light. It was warm...Warm..light?  
  
It's not REAL..Brock found himself saying in his head which echoed through the entire light river like an empty cavern. He hurtled through this river of devious falsities fashioned by those who only wanted to see this crawling, crushed being drink the sand when he thought it was water. It wouldn't work. Such sanctuary wasn't his to have.  
  
Get me out of here.  
  
With an agonized growl he raked the steel edges of the sword-like claws against the light. Trickles of black energy ran across the surface, but it hardly bled its jeering, taunting white blood.  
  
"HHHHHHGHRRROAAAAAARGHHHH..." GET ME OUT.  
  
A primal roar distorted the river and melded it together in a chaos of winding light beams. A deep crack split through the light into pre-dawn darkness. Brock flew to it, desperate for a raw and brtual familiarity. The instant the tips of his claws grazed the light, the wound healed and the tides pushed him into the uniform ocean of white. He consciously swam against it, but why does one resist what helps it, gives it comfort? His inner desire conquered him and the darker depths swallowed him in its vortex of continuous motion that hurled him deeper into the trap.  
  
But he struggled..against the false hope, against his desire to be drawn into it, and be conquered. Why...why didn't he accept it, embrace it? Instead he resisted it, tried to escape it..Wasn't it in the natural order of the universe to seek the light that grew slim patches out of the abundant darkness? Because light exposed all and darkness concealed all, wouldn't one desire the known as opposed to the unknown?  
  
The angel despised rebellion.  
  
How little faith you have in the light.  
  
The wave fed on its momentum and bore Brock swifter than ever. He clawed the flowing river only to find there was no effect.  
  
In this dimension the element is absolute. The power of the soul is magnified and physical senses are eliminated. Another claw swipe that barely scraped the light. The angel's voice tolled in his brain. You are powerless here. Empty music from the belfry played false elegies to shrivelled souls.  
  
That shrivelled even more. Gemini looked at his clawed hands which the light bled through between his disfigured fingers. Powerless...he growled with gnawing guilt and a rawness that bit his throat, Sure, I'm powerless NOW.....  
  
But not when he threw his brother against the tree. When his bones crunched against the bark. He wasn't powerless then. The double-edged nature of this power would haunt him until his dying day.  
  
All of a sudden the white sea froze, its homogenous parts paralyzed and the inertia hurling the demon into the solidifed wall of light. There was a resonating thud but no pain, and he lay on his side, heaving himself up with one leathery elbow and staring at his hands on which new blood didn't burst from under the skin. He swerved his inflamed gaze towards the source of the angel's voice, traversing the tunnel that seemed considerably narrower than when it was moving. In fact, it was like the walls were closing in..  
  
And there in the opposite corner, the archangel appeared swathed in the heavenly glow. Brock moved toward him, ever-wary, his clawed feet covering the groundless space beneath in a cautious shuffle. The angel observed him in a critical manner too worldly for the supernatural being he mirrored. But even so, he mirrored it well.  
  
"What do you fear, friend? I have not spoken falsely to you. You will be the instruments of your own salvation, as well as every Pokémon on this planet. You will no longer be victims of human oppression." A knowing smile creased his white lips. "Angelon gives you his word."  
  
Why should I trust you? Brock snarled, turning away. I've been through hell and back just because the flower smelled nice and the house needed me to keep it from falling apart. He shook his head ruefully. Then HE-----A raspy snarl brimming with pure loathing. --made me his personal slave. But she didn't feel like sharing, did she, Gio? .He twisted the asymetrical facial muscles into a melting smirk at the lizard, who retaliated with an outraged roar that barely pricked the cause of this humiliation. But the relish emptied and his focus was once again on Angelon, whose shallow frown was increasingly deepening. Your word doesn't mean a pint to me.  
  
"But it will, my friend." He slowly lifted his hands, his white eyes flaring calmly behind the cracks of his fingers. He took his right arm and scraped the wall of light away with his nails. An unborn dawn bore grey light into the White Dimension. But it wasn't the sensation of the cold air nor the dismay at the ease in which Angelon carved the window, but it was the piercing scream of a girl that blasted through the tunnel. Ice coated Brock's veins and he lunged at the wall, scraping futilely at the barrier, screaming his friend's name in overwhelming fear,  
  
"MREGGGHSTIE!!!!!!!"  
  
"Understand that I am not a killer. But what is one human life in comparison with the dignity of hundreds of thousands of Pokémon?"  
  
Brock's squeezed his fists, righteous, burning anger torching his arteries and igniting his black heart in rage. But in mid-charge, an inviisble force pushed him back, perverting the orders of his brain to his incensed muscles and sending him back into the wall. The lack of a blow on his back bruised by so many other collisions outside of the white tunnel tugged him into the crushing realization that he wouldn't feel the blood-hot burn of his claws anyway. Instead he felt his throat dry up, and he stared in renewed helplessness at the angel. In final concession he fell on his chest and clutched the light, gorged with deceit and betrayal and every characteristic that seemed to surround the dark. But all this was in the light, too. With eyes moist with tears of anguished hatred, he growled, "DRHOGN'T HRRHGUHRT HRERGH. HHGRHI'RGH'LL DRHO RHHGHIT."  
  
His mouth brought comfort while his mind brought the message of an apocalyptic disaster..  
  
"You have" sealed the fate of all humans "gained deliverance of all Pokémon."  
  
I have no choice. The hate-choked voice clashed with this matter-of-fact one, this one that could smile sweetly with the knowledge that it would not be refused. "That is the truth. The truth also is that this is not your task alone." Again he raised his hand, projecting the image of the Vermillion docks in their brains. It plunged deep underwater beneath the steel hull of a docked ship, revealing a massive hulk in the gloom of the murky saltwater. "The humans protect this by using machines and our own brethen. Retrieve what they guard, and I will unseal them. In it lies your salvation."  
  
Angelon began to fade, the energy radiating off of him cutting through the light as a sword slices through skin, his voice diminishing to a mental whisper that collided with another faceless scream that froze the breath in Brock's black lungs and reminding him the consequences of failure or desertion. So he.....they wouldn't fail.  
  
Brock knew he was back to reality when he felt an ill-placed glass shard dig into his shoulderblade as he connected with the asphalt. No sooner did his skull stop clattering when Giovanni landed side-first on the rough asphalt, the shockwave bouncing the other's head vertically on the same piece of glass. Wasn't sharp enough to draw blood, but it caused him pain enough to make him think the bastard planned that like everything else he did. He shot him a glare that would crack a diamond and rose to a squatting position, rubbing the rough back of his head and scanning their surroundings. Three walls bearing anti-merger protests that long ago became effectless, an open dumpster exhaling its pungent malodor...oh, yeah...and Team Rocket.  
  
Brock exchanged glares with them and the wall. There's no way we can get there on the open road. Even in the dead of night.  
  
Zero-X snorted obstinately out his jaws ridden with the burning acid that coated his tongue. He growled a remark biting in its ignorance.  
  
I do not see why Team Rocket must participate in such nonsense. That girl means nothing to me.  
  
No sooner than he thought this Gemini's claws were lodged in his throat. The vital weak point. One push and he'd die. And Brock was about to do it, too, with or without that careless, heartless remark, his face contorted in a mask of unbound rage.  
  
"That girl" The forked tongue stung like a whip on the hide of his throat as well as his brain.. ..means YOUR life, Gio. With a shameful growl the other agreed with buried reluctance and Brock released his death grip, again facing the vulgar writing on the plain assortment of bricks. He growled a curt order. You're a lizard. Climb the wall.  
  
Seething anger boiled over Giovanni. That boy.....that child...had the gall to tell HIM what to do. His fangs groaned against each other as he growled in the demon's face, pitting his will against the other's. And before it could form into a roar Brock ripped a few strips of hide from the reptile's snout, and with it, the remaining tatters of the Rocket leader's authority. Because it was controlled...it had greater power than blind rage... Control took reason....reason was a mark of intelligence..the fiery rage of the soul had quieted to the tempered fury of the brain, manifesting an emerging dominance over a primitive brute...and the proof, the justification was right there. Brock knew HE was a monster.. but true animals were branded.  
  
Zero-X rooted one set of claws into the shadow-immersed bricks, clinging to the wall with spread limbs the same as any of his...non-Pokémon relatives would. They covered the distance quickly. But for them, size was not an issue. Ivy had planned...this as well. The gargantuan weight..as a human he walked with poise, now he lumbered...so suited for a chain to be wrapped around his neck and led as a beast of burden. And now that boy was holding that chain, invisible, but no less degrading than the real.  
  
He brought each set of claws up at a horrendously slow rate, heaving the huge weight of his body upward after his claws found another place to embed, fighting the gravity that seemed to exert more force on him than his minions. His minions..yes...his loyal subordinates. They would hear his command and would follow him without hesitation, and at least he would know he had some pride left. Laboriously he scaled the wall, a wall he could just as easily smash to rubble with a drill of the horn that projected from his head, still reddened with his sister's blood.  
  
But smashing was easier. Climbing required thought combined with coordination. To smash was to charge with no thought, empty-headed and stupid.  
  
A rush of air and a brush of scales forced the lizard to tilt his massive head sideways. There was the self-righteous demon scurrying up the nonexistent footholds in the bricks, occasionally using the ledges of windows to speed up the climb. And to his dismay, the ridged ball of flesh tailed the gliding bat-fox along the gutter on the side of the edifice.  
  
An innocuous croak demeaned him and made him sink low.  
  
Step on it, boss. It's just you, Cass, and the kid when the sun rises.  
  
For the longest time Zero-X clung to the same bit of brick, pondering the lost meaning of that address. That empty title that once carried the eminence that was godlike in nature with the fear and obedience it commanded. And now..a boy gave the orders. Averting his peripheral gaze away from the sight of the lettering he couldn't read, both on the brick and his monstrous arm, he gave an abysmal growl that offered a pitiful resistance to his plight, and reached the edge of the building, the absence of anyone on the roof telling him that they had already pushed ahead.  
  
The lab had taught him to submit. Bit by bit, the will that had nearly annhilated Mewtwo was broken in accord with his brain. But that was in the lab. But even here...free of the chain, wire, hook, and glass tube, the remains of his will to dominate was being ground up by the wheels of a machine that he never controlled.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Brock landed on the pavement as a phantom alights on the mist. They'd reached the end of the row of buildings, and now were assaulted with the salt-soaked air of Vermillion harbor. His next step faltered, and he fell on the ground, pangs of thirst driving into his parched throat. He found himself panting heavily, biting his lip so that maybe he could be satiated on his own blood instead of killing for it. Ha. The one who really needed killing just made an elephantine landing that split a crack through the asphalt.  
  
Shit. Nice going, Goliath, Brock snarled with murder in his face, doubling over with the raging desire for blood in his system. As the SOLDIERs approached, their guns, which for all he knew might've been tranquilizers, unshouldered and trained on them, Brock stumbled foward on three of his legs and realized this time he would have no choice. Unable to chain his thirst any longer, he lunged for the throat, and the SOLDIER screamed as the demon ripped it out and threw his face full in the blood, sucking the twitching corpse dry. He flung the dead man down and Zero-X devoured it, crunching the bones and ligaments between his acid-covered fangs, layers of muscle hanging out of his open jaws. Through the gloom Butch and Cassidy heard the kid's mental voice giving them...them...a curt command. Get out of here, Brock hissed, the edge of his forked tongue catching the human's flalling blood. We'll---He snarled hatefully at the feeding monster---Cover you until you hit the water.  
  
Take orders from the brat? No matter how badly their pride was wounded, like hell they wouldn't.  
  
We're dead meat the rest of the way, Butch croaked testily. Cassidy's cruel remark followed in succession.  
  
Can't even swim, can you? Brock let another carcass drop with a thud and his arm shot through the shadows, and he clutched a charging SOLDIER by the neck and snapped it with a tight squeeze.  
  
Look. Your fucking boss put me through hell and I really wouldn't mind snapping your necks like I did here. He thrusted the stunned corpse in Butch's face. So if you don't want to be dead meat right now---His claw made a clean cut straight through the throat and he turned away to drink. Get GOING.  
  
They dodged the claw swipe and then the tissue rain from Zero-X's maw, weaving around the scaled trunks of his legs, a shield from the humans..alive or dead, for now. The dead ones were just as dangerous, crashing to the ground on either side of Zero-X and threatening to crush Butch. That is, if their insides weren't already eaten. The faster Cassidy glided and the faster Butch leaped, pushing way beyond their limits if it meant they'd get away from this nightmarish slaughter. It wasn't any easier for them to stand it just because it was a twerp and their boss killing and eating and drinking. The vague trust they once put in the boss was diminishing rapidly. But the command he gave them, however simplistic, kept the dim flame of faith in the other Pokémon from extinguishing completely.  
  
Go. I cannot afford to lose the rest of the organization.  
  
Butch gave a croak of assent and leaped out from under Zero-X, latching onto Cassidy's hind paws, scrambling up her leg, and reaching her back. The bat-fox fled the carnage, her frequent wing beats sending them through the vanishing moonlight and towards the anchored mamooth on the ocean's surface. Below her the waves tumbled over each other and churned in her vulpine ears. It grew steadily louder as Butch signalled her to descend. This must be where it was. Unconscious of the fact, she wrapped her wings around her chest and plunged into the waves.  
  
And they put her at their mercy. Too late she remembered that foxes swam, not bats. Too late she remembered that anything she could do as a human was void as a Pokémon. Her remark bounced off the intended target and bit her in the ass. That kid would laugh at her floating corpse. Unless she did something and did it now.  
  
Butch. Grab my tail and swim.  
  
Check.  
  
He leaped off his flailing partner into the current, gripping her tail in his mouth and pulling her downward, straining his leg muscles to surge into the abyss. The electric lights below reflected off his yellow eyes and pierced the gloom. Panicked bubbles seeped from his mouth. Cassidy was limp behind him. Did she run out of air already? Probably holding her breath. But it wouldn't kill him to make sure. Cass, still with me?  
  
You worry about finding it and getting us there.  
  
I found it, but I ain't a fish, Cass.  
  
A pause. The wake of something farther underwater crashed into him and threatened to send them off course. That bothered Butch. The instincts were going haywire again. It was an enemy. The bubbles from his mouth obscured the water in front of his eyes. Technically, they were two blind Pokémon in the darker depths where the light didn't dare to reach...Where larger, far more aggressive Pokémon than the surface dwellers roamed. The wake grew stronger. This was one long Pokémon.....but wait a damn second...the only Water Pokémon that was THAT long was...Holy. fuck.Cass, we're gonna get there REAL soon or we're Gyarados lunch.  
  
Butch summoned all the strength in his legs and fought against the stubborn current and the impending fear that the Gyarados was straight ahead of them and they'd swim into its open mouth. But that couldn't be, 'cause he suddenly felt a heavy breath behind him. Butch didn't need to look back to know what it was. Cassidy's head missed its head by one stroke. The roar rang doom in his ears, and he swam until he felt like his legs would explode, but didn't give a shit, because it was feeding time and Gyarados had them in its sights. Cass...No answer. I got your tail. Swim. Silence save for Gyarados' roar meancingly amplified by the sea. Cass? An unspeakable terror slowed him down Gyarados lunged foward and caught them in its mouth and was about to deliver the crushing blow with its fangs when it gave a pained snarl, and its blood sprayed into its own eyes and it writhed in fury. Its attacker snatched them from the creature's mouth and lifting its hands up, formed an orb of crackling energy. He lowered his head and his glowing eyes beamed a light on the wasted frog. The thought-voice was an enemy's.  
  
Move right before you hit the wall. It crushes on impact.  
  
The globe of energy shot from their savior's hand, and it wasn't until Butch made out the vague outline of a devil's tail that he knew who to thank for this. But no time for that now. He turned his head around. The ball was fast and so was the wall. Before it connected he swam away from it and the metal surface, ducking the metallic shards that floated rapidly from the explosion. He darted through the hole and up the ledge, not looking back at the rushing water that was collecting in a flood: and threatening to wash them back into the sea. It burst forth, the wall of rushing water charging its one-way course. Butch leaped as fast as Cassidy's weight let him. In his brain, he pleaded for her to wake up, but in the farther recesses of his mind, he pleaded for her to be alive. But it wouldn't matter if the flood drowned both of them. But the door was there. Closing to respond to the break in the outer wall. One shot...The whir of the mechanism in the door seemed to hasten as they approached the door. To get this right. He leaped for the narrow gap in between the two halves and shut his eyes. If I don't.....The creak of gears grating against each other swallowed his ears and filled his mind. ...sorry, Cass.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The rush of water raged against the sealed door. Butch opened his eyes to discover that they weren't lodged between it or dead on the other side. Even though, his croak remained tense. For all he knew, his partner had drowned already. Butch overturned the body with his webbed claws. The eyeless face stared at an approaching oblivion. Unable to communicate much else, he faced away from her and answered her earlier remark. Yeah, he can swim...he told her drenched form ruefully. If only she wasn't a bat.. If she was just a fox, she could swim. She'd have fricking eyes. That snake's gonna get it, he swore to himself, wrapping his mouth around Cassidy's limp tail and dragging her across the riveted metallic plates that constructed the floor. He felt uncomfortably small in this enormous chamber, tanks of something or other bolted to the ceiling, vacant lifts that stood at each far corner, the roaring water blocking the way out if something else backfired and he had to back out.  
  
Which it looked like would be a good time to do.  
  
Six SOLDIERS armed with machine guns and Houndoom burst through the door directly across from the monster. They let the dogs loose first, their savage barks freezing the bubbling acid in Butch's throat and forcing him to escape. He bounded for the lift, the hot saliva of the Houndoom dripping on his back. He let out a croak of terror: he wasn't nearly as fast on land as he was in the water, and the weight of Cassidy was dragging him down, shortening his leaps, making him tired...had to stop... . The hellish breath of the Houndoom invaded the air behind him as their teeth grew closer and closer.  
  
Then his partner's body squirmed, and he heard the splatter of water on the floor. The closest Houndoom slipped nad crashed on its side, halting the whole line that collided in a heap of hot fur and boiling claws that stabbed the floor and regained their balance faster than they lost it, the whole pack lunging in one, blood-mad mass...  
  
The ebony tail in Butch's mouth suddenly jerked. The cacophony that broke the dogs' eardrums shrivelled the air and made the SOLDIER's shout in pain. A low-hanging shadow covered his own, and the collected voice of his partner pervaded his brain.  
  
We have a heist to pull.  
  
Butch stared up to see the sightless visage half-smile, more of a smirk than anything. With leashed elation, Butch leaped onto his partner's soggy back and swept across the room, the recoveriing SOLDIERs cocking their weapons and pummeling the lift the very second that the Rockets squeezed through the shaft and headed into  
  
the blackness.  
  
The leathery part of Cassidy's wings beat noiselessly on the grating. Two walls closed them in: better go foward, she decided. She sent waves of supersonic straight ahead, but her surroundings were unclear. Butch squinted to see what was ahead and gave a croak of alarm.  
  
It looks like a sensor. They neared it quickly though she was still flying lopsidedly trying to get her bearings. Butch jumped to Cassidy's neck and saw it too late. Cass, stop..!  
  
She arrested herself in midair, but not soon enough to keep her snout from tripping the sensor. Red light exploded into Butch's eyes and the alarm shrieked through his ears as Cassidy hurled them both foward, past the humiliatingly familiar sound of flying electric bolts. She half-flipped, giving whatever was attacking them a smaller target. Butch clung onto her neck, digging his claws so far into the fur that he cut the skin and drew a globe of grey blood. He scrunched his amphibian lips and looked away. The loony was a sculptor. He took people and remolded them into hideous travesties of their former selves. As the bolts zapped the air above his head, he wondered if these inhuman forms were reflections of the vices in their human souls.. Were they just being punished for their thefts and indifferent cruelty to what was now their kind?  
  
Whoa...Maybe he was thinking too hard about this. Better lay off thinking for a while. His brain didn't work the way it used to. Besides, they had a job to finish.  
  
They burst out of the electricity-heavy tunnel, the flashing red light and the siren leaving a pack of crimson-garbed SOLDIERs instead of the blue- unifromed ones. They were all the same to the Rockets, but no one just ran into a 2nd class SOLDIER and expected to evade him that easily. They were trained to destroy for a few gil more than the bottom-dwellers. They weren't about to screw their job up and risk getting demoted to 3rd class where their life was cheaper than it already was.  
  
With the flashing light Butch's own vision was hindered and they were flying blind again. One of the SOLDIERs pounced onto the grating and leaped for the pair with his sword drawn. Cassidy felt air rush by her tail and heard a clang as the SOLDIER found his sword wedged between the floor plating.  
  
The other SOLDIERs swarmed the wall, scaling it with their heavy swords slung over their backs. Butch paled and dug into Cassidy's fur. One of the SOLDIERs whipped out his sword from behind him and suddenly leaped to a dizzying height, raising his sword above his head. The bat/fox swerved from the crashing blade, and he didn't regain balance and connected with the floor below with a nauseating crunch of bones. They pulled up and flew up another lift shaft, again immersed in the darkness for a scant few seconds before exiting the shaft and flying straight into the broad end of a sword.  
  
Their flight ended abruptly: The fanged Politoed tumbled off of his partner's back and bounced across the floor, and the Ninetales/Zubat fell with a crash. She regained her wits quick enough to barely dodge the hacking swing of the blade. She scrambled on all fours off the ledge as the human took off a wedge of metal from the edge that plunged through the red light flooding the chamber which she couldn't see. Cassidy caught the air and flapped frantically, panic shooting over her ears as the clanging didn't stop and she heard a scuffle of claws as her partner attempted to dodge the blade. Again and again the sword fell, a sickening clash of steel on steel making her blood sprint.  
  
That's it. It's payback.  
  
She zeroed in on the target, feeling burning breath welling in her jaws from the back of her throat. The fire resting dormant within her grew violently, eating at her raw mouth and charring her teeth. An orb of black flame shot from her mouth and into the SOLDIER's back, burning a hole through his spine into his heart and out the other side, melting off a layer of the metallic wall. The SOLDIER fell dead, the sword clattering with the point dangerously near the frog. He sat there, dazed, trying to keep his composure but miserably failing, the terror in his wide yellow eyes all too apparent from such a close encounter with death....and the more immediate fear of the deadly power contained released inside her.  
  
That was too damn close. He jumped onto the body, squirming at the hole in the SOLDIER. If she could see this...maybe it was better if she didn't. He looked up. The lean monster covered him again with her shadow. The siren still blaring, she briskly searched the SOLDIER's corpse with her nose, stripping him of uniform and his weapon. Butch edged away with a short jump, suspicion elevating as Cassidy gripped the giant sword by the hilt. C.Cass...what're you doin' with that??  
  
You don't want any---human to find this, do you? She transfered it from her mouth to her paws and laid it on her back.. Besides... She pushed the belt and SOLDIER's uniform over to him, motioning to strap the clothes and sword to her. A man without clothes is the LAST thing I want to see, she stated dryly. Butch took her meaning, and witheld whatever reply to make to that. There wasn't time for small talk. No more obstacles answered the alarm, but he had a feeling if they didn't move their asses soon, they'd have more company. He hastily took the sweaty belt and shoved it through the loop and secured the bundle, climbing onto the heap and they sped off towards the enormous door at the end of the chamber that loomed far above their heads.  
  
*~*~*  
  
What the?  
  
As they approached the door, it opened automatically, the two halves sliding away from each other leaving a generous gap. You'd think a place this covert would have a locked door.  
  
The door shut with a heavy clang behind them that reverberated through the gargantuan chamber that spanned farther than Butch's eyes reached..  
  
But now he wished his eyes were gone, too. He managed a weak, faint croak that rasped in her ears. His partner felt her claws tighten on her back in heightened anxiety. What's the matter? Cassidy growled, her wing muscles tensing. The other fell silent a long moment. What is it? Spit it out.  
  
You're lucky you're blind, was all he had to say.  
  
A dismal growl cracked the air as a loafer tearing at the seams fell heavily on the floor. At first glance, it was a human until you saw the hole in the shoe that revealed coarse fur. Then you looked up and saw the face, the mark of animals..Pokémon, but mutated. Like them..but they still had faded remnants of clothing, which proved the thing that unnerved him the most:  
  
They all used to be human.  
  
. The clouded memory of the dead Grunts burst from the murk and hit him like silver bullets in the heart and he stumbled off of Cassidy's back, landing on his chest. His wart-ridden eyelids snapped shut and then open, bulging and stunned, meeting the hollow, hopeless features of...his kind. He couldn't see the other side of his face, hidden by a shadow cast by the giant barrel it clutched near its fur-laden chest that quivered under the crushing weight.  
  
That was just one that passed by. There were others. Many more others.. that hauled the same barrels, some so exhausted they resorted to shoving them across the floor, straining under the effort. Some of the weaker ones lay on the floor, their tongues hanging out and dragging on the abusive plates. For the longest time he watched this sick nightmare play out, all the while wondering why the hell hadn't they escaped yet if the door was---  
  
Locked. It's a trap...he groaned, scraping at the metal with his short claws. He hit it with an acid blast, but the only thing he got for it was a bad taste in his throat and the creatures' hollow, emaciated gaze on him, as if to say, "don't bother, there's no way." Come to think of it, not once did he hear their thoughts in his head.  
  
You'd think they'd be more vocal about this crap, Butch thought, stretching his pensive gaze to the suffering beasts. But I ain't hearing anything. He climbed onto Cassidy's shoulders, feeling the wind rush over his skin as she beat her leatherlike wings.  
  
Maybe they CAN'T think, she replied. Dead silence. So not only their bodies and their wills were wiped out, but so were their minds. As Butch looked around more, the sadistic nature of this torment manifested itself in stark, blatant terms. A sign bolted to the wall that adjoined the gigantic door. It bore the picture of an animal skull and crossbones and bold, large lettering. Obnoxiously large. Even a person who...who...A person. That was it. There were no people here. He could read it...with difficulty,  
  
since he had to spell out each letter and think about..he had to think about what the word actually meant. It was no longer automatic, but way more than they could do.  
  
Pull handle to open.  
  
It was cake..for a human. So simple....  
  
. Whoever's runnin' this operation's got Pokémon like---He paused, his wounded pride taking a stab at him again and cutting through his sprit. -----them locked up in here.  
  
We don't have much time left, she answered in a yap. Lets get them out of here and split-----  
  
Both of them heard the deep bang of metal on metal. Butch reached the ledge and looked farther across the room. It was the steel drums again, the load that would break a man's back but a load that broke an animal's back just as easily. And the more he watched them, how some of them gazed despairingly at the barrels as if it was the cause of their...condition, the deeper the sinking feeling he got in his gut.  
  
Somethin' isn't right about this..  
  
You're telling me, Butch. I trust that Angelon creep less than I trust the cops.  
  
Cassidy took flight, the irregular beat of her wings sending them flying overhead the toiling beasts, a few of them groaning bneath the immovable weight, others voiceless and submissive in their plight, any sort of protest killed by the years.  
  
A few of them stared hollowly at the tops of the cylinders they were perpetually moving. They looked at their paws and hooves and wings or whatever used to be human hands, struck the drum, and continued to push it into the stack in the center that  
  
climbed ever higher towards what looked like a huge suction protruding from the ceiling that sucked up the drums. The machine attatched to the transparent floor above them. He saw the shadows of humans...maybe that floor was transparent so they could look down and jeer and the monsters could look up and get tormented more, knowing that they were no longer the humans that strode confidently above their heads drowned in sweat.  
  
Beyond the massive suction, several of them stood bent over a vat of black liquid expelling tangled vapors of that formed a black mist that spread across the ceiling with grasping hands. They had flasks in their inhuman limbs, but the very basic of instruments. Nothing that had numbering or lettering, nothing that they could read...maybe to prevent that barrier in their brains to crumble and remember that once in their lifetime, they did read. And they must've read a lot.... Looked like scientists or lab technicians from the old labcoats they wore. They, Butch noted, were the worst deformed. A couple had more than one head growing out of places where heads didn't grow out of, tentacles---a lot of them had tentacles. As Cassidy descended and they got closer to the vat, the machine that they were shoving the drums in, and the monsters themselves, Butch thought he could see stitches running up and down on one or two of them, like those monsters from a book he read when he was a tyke: it was about monsters that were parts of corpses that were sewn up and electrocuted and came back to life.  
  
Had they been dead? Nah...that couldn't happen.  
  
Yet..what human survives after getting split in half?  
  
Butch jerked suddenly at his partner's voice in his head that cut through the bubble of the black liquid and the snarls and shrieks of the freaks that were still vibrant. Humans. He saw her ears turn upwards at the language that wasn't yet unfamiliar, and she shot in the same direction, her uncovered wings flapping constantly to keep herself going upward. Something she had done for her entire life.....until it all ended on Valencia.  
  
The other latched tightly to the bundle of clothes, scrambling to keep his grip on it as Cassidy reached an obstruction, her nose pressing against a solid object. By now the voices were completely coherent, and the Rockets' mental voices rang in each other's heads simultaneously in recognition of the loud, rather unpleasant voice of the scientist that headed the failed attempt to capture Lugia. Professor Nanba.  
  
Upset as usual.  
  
"..mans do NOT serve humans!"  
  
He was a hot-headed believer in anthropocentrism.  
  
"They're not humans anymore. Are they, Professor?"  
  
A brilliant mind that pomposity and oversight that came of inflated ego made indolent.  
  
"They WERE, and that's ALL that MATTERS!"  
  
He could never argue something without shouting and shouting it loud. Like the fire element.  
  
"Professor, you're working with Shin-Ra now. Throw away your human-centered ideals. We prefer to work in harmony, not hatred."  
  
He lost his impatience easily. He constantly roared. Like an Arcanine.  
  
"What is there to be HARMONIOUS about?!?! It's absolute INJUSTICE, making humans make this Black Rain--look at them, they've all mutated from exposure to the vapors alone----in my expert opinion, it is too dangerous to use in the first place! What if someone opened the seal on those canisters?! The gas would leak out, condense and form clouds, rain and MUTATE ALL HUMAN LIFE  
  
ON THE PLANET!!!"  
  
Butch and Cassidy became stiller than a crypt in that instant. The monsters..that was it..that was the same stuff that got used on them, that turned them into this..  
  
Liquid was bad enough. It could be neatly packed in those syringes, those death needles...a gas...... It could expand..it would...end the world...destroy all the humans...  
  
"Humans? No. Not humans. There's a hidden monster in all of us. That monster comes out in the DNA of a great many people...many more than you envision right now. They're not actually people. They look like people, but they're actually 'Pokémon'. Or our Planet's breed That's the experiment. To release the hidden monster...to remove "humans" from their self-proclaimed "throne" and force them to integrate with what we usually call the 'animal kingdom'." He paused, letting it all sink in but adding some consolation before Nanba's heartbeat stopped from the sheer...repulsion of it all. This...DISGUSTING idea of practically causing the EXTINCTION of the HUMAN RACE....  
  
MADNESS.  
  
"If it's anything to you, it's a lot of bull, but I work for Professor Hojo. This is his goal, not mine."  
  
"Hrmph! If I knew there was such a crackpot in charge of this atrocity I would've never joined the Order!" They heard his loud tread grumbling on the floor above them. Flesh on metal: he was grabbing something. A lever? "I'm shutting all Black Rain production down!" He began to crank it, the high whine of the suction dying to a low roar. The canisters continued to clatter across the floor, partially drowned out by Nanba's furious shouting.  
  
"You'll produce and ship chemicals to test on POKéMON, not HUMANS!"  
  
"Really, Professor, I don't want to do this...You'd be better off in jail for being this unco-operative but then you'd be with "human" sympathizers like Demoni and Hale-" He motioned with his index finger to a 2nd class SOLDIER standing with his hand on the hilt of his sword, a fitting executioner of the disloyal, as he did his job and didn't ask questions.. "---you."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Take Professor Nanba to the production room---"  
  
"WHAT?! You can't be serious!!!"  
  
"Right away, sir."  
  
He laid a soft hand on the lever and yanked it to its original position, the vacuum re-activating and invading the Rockets' ears with the pernicious whine.  
  
"Sorry, Professor. It's either my humanity or yours. Besides, I'm looking for a position in the Order. They're not looking to keep anyone who would betray the cause."  
  
The scientist's pleading turned to begging. It wasn't long before Nanba was on his knees, somehow willing that Shin-Ra was more magnanimous than Team Rocket.. But the answer proved that wasn't so. Brutal irony that he'd meet his demise at the hands of a respected, law-abiding company rather than an organization of crimainls. But who couldn't say that Shin-Ra were all crooks? And these crooks had a witness which they were dying to get rid of.  
  
His executioner shot him a smug smile. "Why so worried, Professor? IF you're an actual human the Black Rain won't effect you."  
  
"B---but....."  
  
The lab assistant tired of his protesting and ordered the SOLDIER to get him out of there. Nanba's protests faded as he was dragged through the door, clutching the floor with his fingernails, which would very soon become claws.  
  
"Rage brings out a Pokémon's true power," Butch mumbled, too shocked to avert his eyes from the spot where Nanba had been begging for his humanity a scant few moments earlier. Didn't matter now how far he made it in the Team Rocket researcher's ranks...he'd soon be one of them, stripped of identity and speech and literacy and everything that set him apart from that Lugia and its kid they relentlessly sought to capture.  
  
So now they knew the truth. The truth that got buried by all of Angelon's mincing words and sugarcoating...he called it "salvation". Heh. Some salvation. Cassidy dove towards the high pile of canisters, narrowly avoiding the blaring suction at the center of the chamber. He wants the drums, not the Pokémon, Butch stated tensely, staring down at the hundreds upon thousands of barrels...  
  
So he can make more, Cassidy growled, thoroughly disillusioned as she nosed the thick canisters. She could almost taste the chemical locked inside..that was her blood, that was bitter in her mouth. Basic in taste and contrived by base people that wanted to make everyone base like them.  
  
Man....no wonder he said that humans wouldn't oppress us anymore.  
  
There won't be any humans to oppress...Her snarl blended with a bleak whimper...if there ARE any left, they won't last long swamped by Pokémon.  
  
A silence broken only by the hollow sound of the moving canisters ensued. They were charged with stealing them, weren't they? And now they knew WHY. He used them. No one.. used Butch and Cassidy. For a while their pride swelled and they felt like the most ruthless Rocket agents again, following no orders but the boss', loyal to no one but the organization, having no second thoughts about backstabbing....  
  
But if they returned empty-handed...  
  
Was dying really worth it? Maybe it would hurt less if Angelon killed them, but if he made good on his threat and killed the girl, the demon would rip their guts out.  
  
But was that really such a bad thing?  
  
Should we do it?  
  
If we do, we're dooming the world.  
  
If we don't...  
  
Butch felt a tingling in his muscles and a haze in his memory. The tension in his voice latched to Cassidy's mind as if he dug right through her skull. It's almost morning. We gotta choose now.  
  
Save the human world from the Pokémon or save the Pokémon world from the human. If they backed out of this they would suffer forevermore while the rest lived in ignorance of the monsters they harbored. And the angel would ice the girl and Brock would tear them apart afterwards. If they fulfilled the mission Brock would tear them up anyway for spreading the pain to people who didn't deserve it and all that ethical junk. . Either way, they were dead meat.  
  
The Grunts...their death was by humans. So the humans would die by them. They don't deserve mercy, Cassidy resolved, the hatred in her from that un- erasable sight they both witnessed of human evil. The transformation shamed them, but didn't make them pitiful wretches searching for redemption. They still returned worse for bad. It was their nature. Shoot, she ordered, knowing full well their decision was irrevocable.  
  
A blast of acid fountained from Butch's mouth at the signal. It hungrily devoured the the ceiling and splattered on the flooring, unsatiated and undernourished. It gnawed through the outer wall. The fast-moving spray of water that burst through the holes from behind signalled the threatening invasion of ocean. One more shot would break through the entire wall. One more shot would send them on a path that, once on it, wouldn't get off it. A one-way street.  
  
This is it. No going back.  
  
Finish it, Butch.  
  
Butch bounded for the quivering bolts that barely clung to the convulsing section of wall, and spat the burning substance onto the plate. It burned in its appetite, the ocean rumbling against the weakened chunk that fell away and opened the gate to the sea.  
  
It rumbled in fury, tumbling into the jagged tear and it flooded the short hallway, shorting out the vacuum and crashing through the hole in the transparent floor. It cascaded into the production chamber, whisking the canisters in its turbulent arms and pulling them out towards the sea. Butch latched onto Cassidy's tail with one claw and caught the barrel with his other one, spinning out of the tear in the wall and back at the mercy of the ocean.  
  
Butch felt the dawn creeping up on his mind and his body. Soon he wouldn't remember how they got out of Pallet, why they were on this mission, and soon he'd lose the strength in his legs and trade the frog stroke for the dog paddle....soon the current would change and they wouldn't reach the surface in time.  
  
But Angelon had other plans. Butch opened his eyes in time for the salt to sting his retinas and to see a pale white light entangling claws that were quickly reforming into fingers, immersed in white light as he, Cassidy, and the canisters vanished, the panicked bubbles from their lungs rising to the surface as the light receded.  
  
The blood-painted docks were likewise empty. The residue of white light still sparked through the red streaks.  
  
The surface achieved its morning tranquility. The sun's early blaze sketched its faded caricature on the rumbling surface. The elements co-existed in chaotic calmness. Such was nature. But the blur of scales that gouged the dew-heavy air made sure this calm was transient.  
  
The reptillian wind crashed across the waves, parting the ocean and raising walls of foam that spilled over the scaled body, abusing the tumbing ocean with every wing beat that fueled the natural chaos of Posideon and fused with an ancient wrath.  
  
Destruction waited on the dawn's shoulders. Foam churned with a boiling roar as the dragon stormed towards the strip. A pillar of wind streaked over his scales that made him one with the sky. At last..his liberation would be forever, outliving the universe itself.  
  
If not for Highwind.  
  
A crack shot through his left wing and jerked him roughly backwards. The wind around him died. Hot rage transformed his glowing eyes into two converging hurricanes.  
  
You recover too quickly for a human, he snarled, staying aloft with one wing as the imbalance threw him on his side. He whipped his ridged neck to see his defunct wing get twisted at the joint. He roared at the shot of pain that his other half managed to cause him..him..who could rip out his smoke-clogged lungs if he wished...if they weren't connected like this...!  
  
Draconis Rex plunged in altitude and crashed across the ocean's surface.  
  
The human's voice burned weak from the Mako poison that racked the vessels in his brain, but growling with vengeful desperation.  
  
Snap..Fucking..wing......  
  
"HRRREEEEERRGHHHHHHHHH....."  
  
He wrenched the joint from inside, the threat of it cracking breaking the dragon's course and sending him beneath the waves. His eyes shot open and saliva blew through his clamped fangs that turned into a menacing grin. Trying to drown him. How idiotic...he'd be in control before Highwind could swim three strokes in this current. But he couldn't fly if that ungrateful human broke one of his wings.  
  
I'm warning you, Highwind, if you break my wings, you buy them.  
  
The wrenching motion stopped, but the grip stayed tight and crushing.  
  
It's your funeral, dragon-breath. You can't fly with broke wings..!  
  
Draconis Rex thrashed less and less as the water gushed into his lungs and drove him closer to unconsicousness. The grin spread broad and cruel across his reptillian face.  
  
Neither can you, Highwind.  
  
The grip loosened. You can't fly to get away from the authorities...they'll mistake you for me.  
  
What authorities? Cid scoffed, not realizing his grip had loosened still, not realizing the dragon was playing with him like a toy.  
  
Oh, you don't know? That's right, you were unconscious when I killed those humans.  
  
A squeeze toy.  
  
F--fucking hell?!?  
  
Could be squeezed until all the stuffing fell out.  
  
They'll know a dragon did it. They'll hunt for you.  
  
The toy can't do anything about it.  
  
No...I don't look nothin' like you...  
  
It's not the one in control.  
  
If you break my wings, no one will tell us apart. We'll be brothers. You never had brothers. Wouldn't you like a brother, Highwind?  
  
It's not the one doing the squeezing.  
  
JUST...FUCKING..SHUT...UP...!!!!  
  
Cid let go. But not soon enough. The dragon gave a wave-garbled roar as he folded up and his limp body floated to the surface. As  
  
Cid found himself control once again in the turbulent waves, his tormentor burned a mocking thought in his hurting brain as he was thrown up by the current and parching salt water burst into his nose and mouth,  
  
I hope you can swim.  
  
*~*~*  
  
With bloodshot eyes Rufus stared at the saucer of milk he had unwittingly ordered.  
  
"Glass," he growled irritatedly. "I said GLASS of milk. How difficult can a simple-----" He banged on his desk with what happened to be his bandaged hand, his lips parting and releasing a feline snarl as a shock of pain cracked through it. "...order---" "When I say GLASS, I want a GLASS..!" Here he was, Rufus Shin-Ra, fretful and querulous over the milk like a spoiled child. And...he noted angrily, not without price. He felt the dried bandages loosen around his hand. Sweat dripped from the peak of his forehead down his temple. The hated fur.....was pushing between the bandages and growing more visible..He pressed his face on the flat surface, the coldness of it attacking his skin and making the fur sprout faster than he could cover it up so no one would see..."Damn you, Ivy.." he growled. "DAMN you."  
  
A crack of the phone shook him off the desk and semi-upright.Perhaps it was the demoness herself. He ripped the phone from the cradle and shot up, his other hand slamming on the desk and the sudden jerk of his elbow scattering the usually orderly stack of paperwork that hadn't been looked at and the untouched Magikarp next to the saucer. He ignored the ringing in his skull as he smashed the phone to his ear. "What?!" he roared at the other end, growing all the more furious when he heard the drunken laugh of one of his executives. "What, Heidegger?!" The intoxicated slur stocked wood in an already impatient flame. It wasn't enough that Hojo accused them of corruption...with HIS monetary resources, nonetheless, but now he had the GALL to waste himself while he was paying him tens of thousands of gil by the month?! He didn't notice the fur sprout and hide the bandages as he snarled into the phone, commanding him to be intelligible, but the slurred drone failed to cease. Yet...through his drunkenness, he could hear..what?..someone..found... dead...a woman..a scientist...  
  
Ivy.  
  
Impaled, he said...Not on a sword or spear..the wound..there was an autopsy..a hole in her chest...too large for a Nidoking or Rhyhorn..could only have been made by a monster.  
  
The monster. One of the monstrosities in the lab, the escape of which cost the company...him..... a fraction of his vast and extensive fortune. Rufus let the phone slide off his ear, clattering on the desk as he seated himself on his chair..his throne, and fingered the raw Magikarp thoughtlessly. If not for the fur growing out of his skin and one of his hands on his throbbing head, one might think he returned to normal. "A fitting death...killed by her own creation." He grudgingly gripped the saucer of milk and sipped it, catlike eyes piercing the opposite end of the office. "Now Shin-Ra will be unhampered by the-- questionable activities of these scientific malefactors." Rufus held the saucer to his lips again, which tumbled out of his hands as he heard a tremendous sonicboom that shredded the clouds beyond the window. He twisted on his chair, his rattled gaze zeroing on the moving object, a bowing tornado, streaking across the sky. He fell towards the window with his pulsing head and glared at the thing. It wasn't a tornado..it looked like an animal...a dragon??  
  
"This is your parting gift, Ivy?" Rufus stalked back to his desk, falling heavily on the seat of the chair and pounding the saucer of milk, which overturned and left his hand a cold and reeking mess. He took it away and held it there as he delved in his pocket for a handkerchief, and wiped the---fur-covered limb. He held it to his face and bit down on his lower lip in frozen terror. The skin on his hand wasn't even visible, now, all covered in that tangled .fur. Brownish orange......like the cat he owned as a boy--how Ivy could haunt him by bringing back a childhood memory, leaving this horror behind before she went to the grave---how could he have been so blind?..!! That Ivy would also make him fodder for the lab---The orbs of ice snapped open. Something was not logical in this.....something he had overlooked...He found that fact and confronted it in his crowded mind. "How could a foreigner, young besides, have known that I owned a household pet?"he questioned, wringing his pounding wit for an explanation.  
  
His logic fragmented by the pain in his head provided only one solution: Ivy was not responsible. And if she wasn't responsible for his---freakish appearance, then another was culpable for that dragon that sped into the west, taking the deafening din of its presence with it and extinguishing any immediate threat. That was one more headache he was spared..he did not need ANOTHER problem on top of the fur and the headache and the lacerated hand which he dare not step into a hospital to get examined, the way he looked right now....  
  
Then there was that dragon that appeared to make things more chaotic than they already were..This appearance couldn't have been accidental. It was not a Weapon, but an animal. Animals did not roam densely populated areas on their own whim. A human had to command and control it.  
  
.Who would have enough years behind him, a mind sick and warped enough, an ambition great enough to do this to him? He, Rufus Shin-Ra?  
  
He grabbed the crown of his head with his fur-covered hands and tore through the chasms of his brain, teeth that were getting a little sharper at the ends clamped together in a frustrated snarl of trying to remember..  
  
And all of a sudden it came to him. He took his hands off his head and began to laugh. A slow, acrid laugh that was broken by feral growls.  
  
There was no need to say the name out loud. It burned in his soul and left its mark on his body..  
  
*~*~*  
  
Tifa got to thinking how much easier this would be if Shera lived on the same continent. If there wasn't a whole sea, a living thing in itself, a living being not unlike the beasts that roamed Gaia. But while they wree freaks of man, the ocean was a freak of nature. While the life forms could be and often were, killed, the ocean in its vastness was invincible, impervious to those weapons fashioned by its enemy: mankind.  
  
If you walked across the ocean, you drowned. If you used a Chocobo...  
  
She found herself trudging with half-laced boots a bit past a moonless midnight armed with her Platinum Fist and a weak-beam flashlight in search of the Black Chocobo they left dangerously close to the Midgar ruins. This was their last hope of getting to Rocket Town. If that Chocobo died when Meteor fell, they could pretty much abandon any hope of finding Red XIII, Barret, and Cid.  
  
The wind was dead that night. The dying grasses felt no relief from the stagnancy of the static gloom. Tifa's tread further abused them, crunching them beneath the ridged, rubber soles, one of the cheap brown laces snaking across their vulnerable heads. Of course, the closer you got to Midgar, the rarer the grass became, until there was nothing but the barest of stone, a wasteland where no human lived.  
  
The Mako was heavier here, too. A pungent musk attacked her lungs. God...it got so much worse after Meteor fell. The Reactors exploded and left that toxin hanging in the air and pouring more poison in the already sick and weary skies.  
  
Shin-Ra left us a dead world to inherit, Tifa reflected as she shone the flashlight's low beam on the lifeless earth. It showed no signs of being alive, it lay there, an immense corpse that the living walked upon.  
  
But to say that something actually lived on the wasteland was a lie. Tifa wasn't used to being surrounded by so much deadness. At least in the Train Graveyard, or the Cave of the Gi, there were monsters that attacked them, but here, nothing. Without the rustle of the wind, it was beyond nothing. She walked through a void through there was ground beneath her, and even then the sound of her boots didn't make that much noise. And when it did, it aggrandized the uncertainty instead of ameliorating it.  
  
The batteries were getting low..it was best to keep going, blindly as it was, as the flashlight's bulb flickered faintly before it finally turned off.  
  
Tifa felt a chill ceep up her spine. It wans't so much the total darkness as the sound..it wasn't her walking, or her breathing, or her heartbeat that suddenly got louder. It was a scrape of something sharp...like claws...on the rock. She broke into a fighting stance and put up her fists, spinning in the darkness to pinpoint the scratching...it was getting persistent..there was a coarse warble, like a.....Tifa kept her guard up and sniffed the Mako-drenched air. The extra effort clapped her glove to her mouth and nose and she gasped for actual air, tripping over her laces and bumping her forehead on a hard bill. The warble shot to a shrill call and Tifa squinted up. She could see nothing, but the ruffling of hard, roughened feathers told her she found it very much alive.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Dawn found it taxing to pierce through the Mako haze of Midgar and its territory. It wasn't worth the effort. The sun that shone on Gaia was tired and aged. Its youth was ended with the coming of the Mako Reactors.  
  
The sun still gave enough light this side of the world so people could see what they were doing, for the most part. So when the sun came up, it brought to Tifa disappointment that they hadn't bothered to breed a Chocobo that could cross the ocean.  
  
She rode it out of the Mako haze as quickly as possible, and managed to reach the Highwind at daybreak. She dismounted the bird, landing at its side, upon which she noticed something about the Chocobo...it was a Black one, able to cross rivers, shallow water, and the steepest mountain, but avoided the deeper waters.  
  
"Great........this is a big help.."  
  
Tifa eyed the beast dubiously with crossed arms over her plentiful bosom.  
  
The black-feathered fowl snorted in disgust, both at the human and her disinterest in it because of its shortcomings. Here come the feather-less monsters getting on its back and riding it wherever they pleased. And they STILL have the balls to look at them like THEY'RE not good enough enough when humans would take months to cross mountains while they could do it in the space of a few minutes. She approached it, pressing the knuckles of her unarmed fist against her chin and tapping the index finger on her cheek in contemplation. "If I go over the mountains to Junon, I can rip off a Shin-Ra aircraft and make it to Rocket Town before anyone notices.."  
  
She started to get a leg up on the Chocobo's sable back, and froze with one leg still slung over the bird and the other foot on the ground. There was the sound of defnite breathing, belonging to what might as well have been an ephemereal being, but unfortunately, was real as the victims he left behind whenever his Limit broke. What would follow then, she dreamt about it when he mangled the corpses after killing them, waking up with chills every time, the memory of the shrunken, drained corpses too hard to forget..  
  
"You would not take such a risk yourself," he interjected, melting into sight without any indication that he was there before. Tifa hid her fear with a shiver from the induced cold, and she mounted the Chocobo's back, swinging her leg over its side and resting her gloves on its neck. It sqawked in visible irritation, clawing the ground with its talons restlessly, crowing and cawing "wark" with relentless persistence. "It is best to travel in companies of three," the pallid man advised, the glint of his incisors freaking her out even more, because they were a bit sharper than his other teeth, and she dug her boots in the Chocobo's side. It screeched and refused to move.  
  
Damn it.....  
  
"Fine, Vincent, get on," Tifa sighed exasperatedly. He complied, sluggishly boarding the bird, that grumbled underneath the added weight. It wasn't much, but every little bit added up and put a worse strain on its back that had been free for some time.  
  
Bite my neck and I'll put a stake in your heart, Tifa warned the man in her mind. Now there was a shadow over her. A lean, gaunt shadow, but imposing nonethless. Who knows, maybe any second his limit would break for no reason and he'd transform into Hellmasker or even worse, Chaos. Then I'll be in trouble, she sighed, brushing her brown hair from her muddy eyes. With a last look at the Highwind, she hoped Cloud got her note that she'd be out for awhile and to not expect her back in a few days..they already wasted enough time deciding whether to brave the portal or not.  
  
Besides, she got the bad feeling that Cid somehow had landed himself in trouble.."ass-deep in shit", as he liked to say. Ha...they wouldn't even be going out looking for him, Red, and Barret, if she hadn't wrecked the Highwind in the first place.  
  
Don't think about that now...  
  
She shoved it in the back of her mind and steadied the bird again and dug shivering heels into the bird's ribs. It reared up with a shrill cry, ruffled its madly flapping wings, and took off in a sprint.  
  
But as fast as the Chocobo sprinted, they would never reach Rocket Town. The gate to the other world was about to swing open and invite them to pass with a beckoning hand.  
  
The jet-black talons marked a trail in the vegetation, stunted by bad soil and bad minerals and bad air and bad everything. The testimony of Shin-Ra's power. Nothing flourished or thrived in the Midgar area. It struggled to exist. That was all.  
  
So the light tripled its strength when it broke through the stumps of grass that clung to infertile soil. It radiated from a wry grin above ground and poured its light in a continuous spiral that swallowed their eyes.  
  
Blind.  
  
"WARRRRRK!"  
  
The Chocobo reared on its talons, spilling both riders onto the ground with a heavy crash, so taken with fear that it went mad with it. Tifa looked dizzily up into the blaze of light with her hand pressed against her eyeballs, in danger of getting broiled with its terrible brilliance. She flipped over on her back and watched it melt her vision, slowly consuming it with its pernicious force...that somehow seemed...That was it.....wait...the light....not the same closed hole, but nevertheless, a light...  
  
"It's open! Vincent, lets go!" Tifa yelled, shutting her eyes and hurtling herself into the hole. Haste out of fear. Fear that the door would lock and their crew might be lost for good that time. So she leapt without looking first..without giving regard to the danger that might lurk beyond.  
  
"Haste...makes waste..." Vincent murmured, remembering his own rashness, the rashness of youth, the rashness of youth that destroyed his life forever. So, if that was so, what need of caution had he?  
  
So he plunged into the opened mouth of uncertainty.  
  
*~*~*  
  
It vomited them roughly in the dirt, the dawn's sunlight replacing the pure white hell they'd run blindly through. Tifa swept the dirt with her chin, refocusing her stabbed vision and trying to make sense of wherever they got dumped. She stood up and wiped the dirt off her face with a dirty glove and looked around.  
  
It didn't take long for her to affirm she was staring at a whole other world. A world she didn't know that didn't know her own. A world ignorant of her own wasted planet, suffering under a vanquished tyrant but too late to rebound and again fill its hollow self with the life it had before Shin-Ra came and slaughtered it.  
  
It was so...different.  
  
"This can't be Gaia..." she told the chemical-free sky that smiled gently upon the land. No Mako to poison it, no sickly green tint that built up over the years under Shin-Ra's dominance. She almost forgot what the sky actually looked like. She hadn't been to her hometown in so long, and even then that was tainted by the Nibel Reactor. Any beauty in the Nibel sky was probably chemically-induced. But here, all was pure, the land, the sky. She thought she saw a flower growing in front of one of the houses. A flower... Aeris would have liked this place..."It's beautiful.."  
  
Vincent agreed with his unbroken silence. The impartial brass of his soles carved sin in sinless soil. Perhaps it was a mistake coming here. Yes...a mistake... That was why he could feel his sins multiply in his tainted soul and devour any pure fragments, that was why he could hear the howl of his demons that had been caged for too long-----  
  
"Tifa, Vincent," a voice brimming with urgency broke the long howl into intelligble words. He wove around the dumbstruck children and clawed at the dirt in his run, the dire situation waiting in his breath. He raised his head to look at them, not daring to sit down. He couldn't really without feeling the pain, anyway...his shoulder ached too from the monster trying to Blood Fang him. He passed his tongue over it in the sudden ache and winced. Tifa got the hint and rummaged in her shorts pocket for a Cure Materia as she shot questions at the dog. The beauty of their surroundings diminished in the face of priority.  
  
"Red XIII, where are we? Did Cid find you?"  
  
The dog turned his head as he heard yelling and cussing. The howl was probably enough to wake Barret up. Surprised he hadn't woken up already... with that pestering white light in front of the house, but either way, he was awake. So now they were four strong. When the demon and the other monsters came back, they'd be ready.  
  
He signalled Barret with the twisting of his crimson tail, the fireball clinging to its end visible in the waxing pre-dawn. Barret's heavy stomping tread came into earshot quickly, his yelling also growing from incoherent to comprehensible. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he looked pissed.  
  
"Da hell ya didn't wake me up, Red?!?! Dere's dose two kids layin' out dere like dey's gonna pass out and dat goddamn Sephiroth sittin' his ass out on 'dere front lawn!!"  
  
Before Tifa or Vincent could remark, Red broke in, flattening his ears and rubbing the light out of his single eye with his paw,  
  
"I---really don't know who it is, but I get the feeling he's not good news." He shifted to face Tifa, again, who had located the Restore Materia and was trying to yank her gloves out of her pocket while Red faced her again with a wince, lowering his eye at the ground and answering tersely,  
  
"Cid's gone. Hoj---" Red buried his eye in his paw as the white light appeared again with vengeance on their eyes and a low, eerie hum grated on their ears. The dog's scrunched eye widened in panic as his nose caught the scent of demon blood and wet fur. "--I can't explain now. They're back.." he warned, bounding towards the lizard, bat/fox, and the frog that somehow turned into a man, garbed in a SOLDIER uniform...and the demonic beast.. that spilled out of the white hole onto the ground, followed by a horrendous crash of metal drums. They clattered and rolled along the uneven dirt, stopping on their sides and some of them standing up, catching the sun's first rays that reflected in unintended malice towards those looking at it.  
  
Red skidded in front of the hideous creatures, probably victims of Hojo, but dangerous...deadly nonetheless. He didn't need to explain to his comrades just how dangerous they were: actions spoke louder. The demon bore his fangs, stained in crimson blood. The blood of animals, he guessed...or maybe, even humans. A man-eater. And his comrades all were men. As they were the weaker species, he had a duty to protect them. He bore his own teeth and the spark of the wilderness imprinted on his one eye. A growl rose from his throat and snapped through his jaws in warning.  
  
Gemini stayed wary as long as the red beast growled, but a darting glance made him beheld something far more important than the threat of an ambush. His inflamed crimson eyes fixated on Misty and Ash, still too weak to get up, but untouched by Angelon, unharmed by his threats. The twisted growl in his throat softened to a relieved whimper. They were..were alright..  
  
"HHHGRHHALRIGHHT....." he growled with a genuine smile that to outsiders, was pure bloodlust, the smile of a killer about to stab the victim. A smile twisted only by the chemicals that had remolded him, creating the facade of hatred and ill will. But it was only a facade. A facade that Misty saw through, Ash seeing it less easily, but accepting it, not flinching as much when the creature with the blood-painted fangs crawled over to them with this awful grin..  
  
AVALANCHE failed to see through the wall of inhuamnity.  
  
Dese goddamn monstas...dey jes' don't die! Barret grumbled mentally as he levelled his gun-arm with the demon's head. Unbeknowgnst to him, the head..Gemini was engineered to be invincible, but as Zero-X's vulnerable point was the underbelly, Gemini's was the head. He could take a stone-throwing, but not a head-full of bullets.  
  
The other AVALANCHE members took his lead. They were seasoned fighters.. this was another beast to clear the path, to keep themselves from getting killed. Once and a while, they would strike before the enemy did. They were doing it now.  
  
Red crouched to pounce and rake, Tifa put up her armed fist, and Vincent drew his ancient gun from its holster. An imminent death... if caught off-guard they couldn't hit as hard, but if prepared, they were lethal. And all the while Gemini held Ash and Misty, sensing something horribly wrong but too blinded with tears of joy and relief to look up and see the danger, and if he did, maybe he wouldn't care...because he was with the only people who trusted him...and who he could trust....his friends whom he could still call friends..now his family now that he had none except Suzy...who was wandering...probably would wander forever.....  
  
The warning shot through his mind.  
  
Boy, they are aiming for your head. This endeavor will not be worth the blood. we took for it if your skull is not as thick as the rest of your body.  
  
Wha---?!  
  
Gemini looked up in time to see both barrels trained on his head, the dog fit to pounce, and the woman holding her fists aggressively towards him. He let go of Misty and Ash, withdrawing his quivering arms, the tears of joy overrun by tears of terrified shame, and he backed away, covering his naked head in his claws and sliding on his thin tail that wrapped guiltily around his ankles. Misty couldn't believe it. How much could someone take before shrivelling up and dying of agony just because no one trusted enough to give him a chance? She left Ash dazed and upset on the ground and stood up, dismay and anger casting some of the weakness away and hurling it to the ground as adrenaline forced her to get on her feet.  
  
But she didn't get the chance to say anything to them, for the menacing star devoured the town in explosive light once more, and Angelon re-appeared in the midst of it. AVALANCHE feared the angel more than the demon, and the firing was stalled. too blinded with light to pull the trigger , shrinking away from it like the demon had done mere moments earlier.  
  
"Is he..back?" Tifa asked the light, the tighteness of her poised fists fading as she thought she saw the sillouhette of the seraph. Something about him, when they confronted him, made her scared enough to piss in her shorts. Something about him made her want to drop her guard right then and there and succumb to death. Red felt similarly, though a seasoned warrior, the imperious angel struck fear in the bravest of souls, and reduced them with the pierce of his Mako gaze. Only the insane did not fear the one-winged angel.  
  
"I would have felt it. It is not him," Vincent shook his head once to the side before straightening it again and shifting his arm so it was aimed at the angel. He hadn't lost the grip on his weapon. He never let any of his muscles go limp... not since his dying day..a personal goal he set for himself.. one less reminder of his sins.  
  
Angelon smiled in amusement. He pointed his blunt-clawed finger at the humans and dog and answered them with the euphony of his soft, pacifying voice that squelched the fires of the cacaphony of a brutish railer.  
  
"The gifted one is correct. Cast down your weapons." They found themselves obeying him, save Barret, who could not part with his arm. But the rest who were capable, did They who had slain Sephiroth. Not actually mesmerized, but compelled by the forcelessness of it..." As of now, you have no need of them." You will not have hands to use them.  
  
The one who knew chose not to speak. She waited...wordlessly, thoughtlessly, for the angel to end the world. The boss didn't catch on. The kid didn't catch on. He knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what she, and when night came, they knew. They knew it all.  
  
Angelon raised a slender hand through the dawn's rays, the psychic power he and Gemini had been cursed with lifting the canisters from the ground and gathering around him, shaking under his unseen power. White light enveloped the rim of each of the drums, floating eerily in midair, bowing to him as they hovered above the dirt. Bowing to he who would establish a new world order. One dominated by Pokémon as well as all classes of animals, monsters, mutations, freaks.  
  
The energy countered the seal, rattling the lids and pronouncing the destruction of the human race.....  
  
Venus hailed news for Earth, which saved its life and snapped its shoulder.  
  
"HHHRERRGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"  
  
A shadow swallowed the light and a roaring windstorm hurtled into Angelon and the canisters, sending the still-glowing drums rocketing into the upper reaches of the atmosphere and sending Angelon into the solid bricks of a house that shook from the force of the gale. The wind stole the grass, burst through the weaker houses, leaving the rooftops scattered across the ground, carrying them on an unsteady hand only to smash them on cracked glass, that tumbled down the hillside and landed dangerously close to the humans. The stolen grass followed the creature as it screamed over the rooftops and it carried the grass that swirled chaotically behind him as it stretched its neck in the air and roared, a delinquent that enjoyed the bad thing it had done. It was a mere prank...he hadn't actually TRIED to break anything yet. He was just playing. It was an entertaining game for the youth.  
  
In one effortless sweep the houses in his way were beheaded and tried frantically to stay standing. The nearby crash of concrete and plaster and glass told them that one had failed. The unclothed ground trembled with the stolen grass as the wind rushed over it with relentlesness. And the roar, terrible and malicious as it was, added a gust to the wind that sent another house crumbling on itself, leaving its ruins on the ground and the corpses in between.  
  
Gemini saw the gash the dragon made on the town...already people were dying or dead. In one huge gust that even he had trouble trying to hold onto something so he wouldn't fly away. Misty hadn't escaped either, a bloody gash on the ripped bandages where a flying board opened the wound further..Ash was lying on his back a full fifty feet away..he wanted to go help him, but something.....stronger.. kept him there.....clutching the dirt, glaring venemous murder at the monster. That queasy, awful feeling when he was forever changed on the table underneath Ivy's syringe...it was there again. Squeezing, twisting in his gut, causing him to double over. He held Misty and saw red blood. But no thirst grabbed at his throat. It was sickness that rolled in and out like a red tide that brought the deadly algae in its palms. Misty called to him but he didn't hear, sinking, with a voice that commanded him to release the raw animal that threatened to rip through the scant pieces of his broken humanity.  
  
Angelon's anger raged more hellish than the demon's. He had pawns. Now was the time to use them. The center of his pale forehead glowed with psychic energy, still creating the facade of a heavenly aura, that reached for the weaker minds of what was formerly Team Rocket. They froze while crawling up from the debris that piled amidst them, struck by the manipulative beam that rendered them slave to their fellow Pokémon.  
  
Go. Retrieve what has been lost.  
  
A thunderous roar made Tifa and Barret's nerves squirm. Three of the monsters stormed out of view in a flurry of chaos, the largest one trampling over the debris under its claws, the one with wings gliding above it and a SOLDIER tailing them. Ash gazed at them with blinking eyes and a partly-opened mouth, still too hazy to say anything..to do anything..to nurse his broken leg, to wonder if Misty was okay......just lying there, while a big Pokémon hovered above his house and just flew away again. He had to tell his mom so she wouldn't get hurt..but Misty broke his leg, so he was stuck there, trying to get up, failing, and watching something happen to Brock. He looked sick...Brock helps sick Pokémon. Brock wasn't Brock anymore. But he didn't hurt Misty and me anymore. Ash rubbed his head. He didn't feel..himself. I used to...trust Pokémon, no matter how bad they hurt me. Why's it getting..ugh...He felt an ache rising from somewhere in his brain...so hard?  
  
Draconis Rex hadn't had fun since he was a hatchling nearly a few centuries ago.  
  
You can't say anything, can you, Highwind? he taunted, shooting into the stratosphere to give them a little time to defend their puny selves...from his raw power. Are you not worried about your brothers? Those humans I'm going to kill? Go ahead and say it, Highwind. Say how you hate me.  
  
The pilot held his thoughts, trying to ignore the taunting long enough to focus his remaining strength and shut the dragon down. But it was so... ...difficult.....if Hojo didn't knock him out in the first place..goddamn him.....  
  
Nothing? I'm not surprised. You ENJOY this, don't you?  
  
That remark burned in him and fanned the fire. He expected no different. He wanted him to hate him, to be blinded by hate and lose his mind. Without mind to guide brute force, what would stop him?  
  
Hell fuck no, you crazy bastard!!!  
  
He squeezed Cid hard and hoped to crush him.  
  
You don't want me to kill your human friends? The girl with the nice rack, the goth you never liked too much, dog-breath and homie-boy? If you cared for them would you call them by such names? A name means everything, Highwind. Look at your own name. It means you. I only want to destroy your enemies. The gods willed you to be a dragon, not a human....like them.  
  
The target denied everything because none of it was true. It couldn't be....right?  
  
They ain't my fuckin' enemies!!! You're just twistin' things aorund big time! And I..There he faltered. Second guessing...why did he doubt even for a second?! .I don't give a rat's ass what the gods think! I'm human, fuck it!!! The dragon laughed, folding his wings against his back and rendering himself a living meteorite. The dot that was the town grew larger. Cid's cry grew desperate. HUMAN, YA UNDERSTAND??!! The dragon's triumphant roar clashed with Cid's tormented scream. .  
  
And it was then...the wind met the darkness.  
  
"HRRRGGHHUUUUUUUOHHHHH!!!!!!!!"  
  
A crushing wall of ebony scales smacked Draconis Rex full in the face, turning that call of triumph into one of pain. His scaled lids shut and snapped open in cyclonic fury, rushing at his attacker with opened jaws. It was a bigger dragon, hide armed with scales as black as his blood, a forked tongue like a serpent, the crown of the devil projecting from the back of his skull, and his eyes...filled with pure hate for the one who tried to destroy what was left of what he had to hold on to by the trembling edges of his claws.  
  
Draconis Rex sank his fangs into the Black Dragon's neck. The roar shook the clouds into submission and with a twist of his head, the Black Dragon had his horns buried in the aggressor's shoulder. The flailing only ripped the wound wider, and gold blood spilled down his arms. The sight of his own blood maddened his ferocity, and he struck with all four sets of claws, ripping a gash straight through the chest. The enemy dropped, then stormed up again, trapping the other dragon's tail with his fangs and throwing him upward, and struck with the viper's speed, clamping on his leg in an effort to break it while trying to drag the other leg down. The wind heightened as Draconis Rex flapped for all it was worth, the winds cutting across the Black Dragon's face and nulling his vision as Draconis Rex freed one leg and scratched a bloody mark down the side of his head, and grabbed the chance to create a storm in the skies.  
  
Down on the ground, Pallet watched the bloodbath. Misty stared almost vacantly at the spot where Brock had been, the same spot where he flew away from. Scared and worried..that's how both her and Ash were. This draconic form was the incarnation of Hell itself...destructive, a born killer.....But somewhere inside it was Brock. She had to keep believing that.....and believing that he'd be the victor in this clash. Or else the other dragon would kill them.  
  
"Come on, Brock...come down..you can do it.."  
  
The blood-eyed man melded her shadow with his. She and Ash stared up at the man with the claw for an arm with wide eyes. The toneless voice froze into icicles that hung in their mind.  
  
"So..his vengeance reaches beyond the Planet," Vincent observed with rueful coldness in his words. He faced the other way, the gusts blowing through his tangled hair that whipped across his unflinching eyes. "All what derives from who," he stated, constructing a vague reassurance that this philosophy applied to himself as well.  
  
Red pretended not to be bothered by it. The dragon..he couldn't help thinking that maybe this was their punishment for losing Cid to Hojo.  
  
Barret was thinking the same thing. But..that flying freak show couldn't be the pilot. He wouldn't hurt nobody, he thought, staring into the warring skies. Blood seemed to rain from the wounded clouds.  
  
The Black Dragon beat his wings against the windstorm that hammered and malleted his eyes. He flew blindly, the wind dragon waiting tauntingly at the top, smiling with blood painting his mocking grin. The other spread his wings and pushed through the winds, suddenly feeling a crack as Draconis Rex rammed his skull into his ribcage. The Black Dragon's snarl abated with the blow but he retaliated with the darkness, patches of night emanating from his wings and blinding the adversary. This time he went for the wings, gripping the joint and yanking it downwards. Both of them plummeted, plunging back into the troposphere, as Draconic Rex struggled to beat one wing and escape the death grip. Pallet once again came closer, but this time Draconic Rex wasn't in control.  
  
And with the impact that rattled the town by its throat, he lost it once again.  
  
"HUUUOAA...RRRRGHHH......"  
  
Misty and Ash watched in muted distress as the dragon began to revert into its vaguely humanoid shape...into Brock, how he now was, how he'd been for a while. It was almost...welcoming, the bald demon...maybe because she'd gotten used to seeing him this way. Or maybe it was because that something that was shaped like a human, no matter how gruesome a travesty it was, that was easier to trust than an animal.  
  
She heard the defeated thud as Brock landed on his knees then on his face on a part of a roof that had fallen off. Misty clutched the bloodied arm, the chill of his blood freezing her own. There was so much blood..how could she heal him....?..maybe.....a Pokémon Center? No, they woudn't want to touch him, She bit down on her lip and stood up. The Ketchum residence was still standing. Maybe..she could convince Ash's mom to see Brock as she and Ash were learning to see him. If not...Forget that. She would MAKE her see the boy inside the beast if she had to.  
  
"HHHRRE....RRRGHHHHHH........" Enjoy it while you can.  
  
The dragon's mocking roar faded to a weakened silence as scarred flesh of a human took the place of the scaled form of the dragon. The gold blood streaked down the pilot's returning body, collecting at his unshod feet. He wobbled a little, staring off into deep in his mind where he imprisoned the dragon once again. His hands shook as he gave a wry smile that the blood ran into and made hideous and terrifying as he started nodding viciously and stuttered with the distance and isolation of the insane marked on his face as he thought he glared the dragon in his cocky eyes though he was staring at his bloody reflection in a broken piece of glass,  
  
"S--see? I--told--ya I was --h-human."  
  
He dropped flat on the ground where the dragon so recently lay in a heap of its blood and the other dragon's. AVALANCHE couldn't bring themselves to say anything. Barret had the Restore Materia, but as he held out his gun-arm, he and the rest of them were reluctant to use it and knew it. Now it was a thing that could mean death instead of life. Its purpose, to heal, could actually hurt. No...more than that. It could kill.  
  
Seconds elapsed and became minutes. The green bit of solidified Mako controlled the fate of Pallet.  
  
*~*~* A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 20!^^ 


	20. Rain, Rain, Go Away

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Ladies and gents, we're at the halfway point! ^^ Nursery rhymes used are not mine.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 20: Rain, Rain, Go Away  
  
*~*~*  
  
The bats never left the basement that never saw sunlight. They stitched their shroud in intricate patterns across the cavern walls, weaving shadows that clothed the faint lavender shade of the rock in robes of night.  
  
But they avoided the door. The door with the strange markings. The door that guarded the chamber where Team Rocket unwittingly found refuge in. In the open coffins, where they could hide underneath the eternal darkness, where they could only feel, not see, the bones that clasped around them, that rattled against their damp flesh near enviously, vying the thing it could never regain.  
  
The rotting coffin lid grinded protestingly against an equally decrepit rim and raked the naked bones which this casket held. Perhaps that same soul that had decayed until only its skeleton was left was trying to free itself from this prison, forsaken by the Lifestream by the poisoned contents of its blood and condemned to remain on a planet as dead as itself.  
  
A muted groan sifted through the coffin lid, followed by chunks of ice breaking in jagged pieces against the wood. A panicked squeal, a dulled crash, and the lid overturned, the bones hitting the coffin rim with a pronounced clack. A body rose, not quite as skinless as the skeleton, but with bone just as cold from fear alone. Colder still with the icy dread from the ice shards embedded in the coffin that weren't there before.  
  
"Eeeeeep..." James squeaked timidly, fear-struck eyes peering through the heavy shroud of darkness. "J--jessie? M--Meowth? P--Persian?" he stammered with teeth chattering out of the sudden cold. He heard the same muffled banging from inside. They hadn't died on him yet. That was a good sign. First one today...he sighed miserably, approaching the coffin and grabbing the lid with both hands, and yanking on its edges. He caught sight of the nail heads...firmly rooted in the wood. It was sealed. Panic surged over him. They can't get out...!! D...don't panic... there must be some way out of..His emerald eyes dropped to his belt. Relief displaced panic and he pulled one of his PokéBalls, ice in his hands, and, too cold to move far, dropped it on the cobwebs. The Ball opened, a shriek of hunger piercing the coffin room, its narrowed eyes screaming with hunger. "No..not agaaaaain..!..!" Ignoring the ineffectual protests, the vicious plant hurled itself towards its master, but froze in mid-air, instantly encased in ice. The ice block uselessly crashed to the ground, James peeking up in time to barely dodge another volley that sailed overhead and crashed into the other coffins, breaking their hold on the other Rockets.  
  
They crashed through the weakened wood, the boards clattering on the rocky earth, the double effect of cold and terror freezing their already frozen veins. .They hadn't dried off either from the deluge outside, their clothes damp and clinging to wet skin. Chills swept their insides and a fit of coughing racked their lungs. And all the while, it steadily grew colder than a subzero night at the acme of winter.  
  
But the cold was the last thing the small cat had his mind on.  
  
"Is...d---da freak gone?" Meowth managed to stammer, shaking harder than he'd ever have in his long, lonely life. Not even as a kitten had he been this scared, when the butcher was after him, ready to beat that little thief black and blue. Not then...then he knew what was coming..a good beating and denial to the food, maybe a blow to his pride, but the grease-covered man who wielded the needles...there was no telling WHAT could happen. They could wind up dead...they could wind up like that human getting...tortured on the table.  
  
James searched through the darkness, praying to God that the predator was gone. And for awhile his mind was clear and he didn't worry that there was something breathing down their necks. There was nothing..... Nothing but cobwebs, the coffins, the skeletons, the purple tint on the wall, that shed lurid light on the two-headed creature in the corner with claws on its hands and feet and hollow eyes that glowed a faint red and the right head shooting an ice storm straight at his head......  
  
OHMYGOD.  
  
He froze. The ice shard smashed its broad side on his forehead. He stumbled on his heels with a squeak and crashed to the floor next to the frozen Victreebel. Jessie couldn't even turn around to yell at him, transfixed by the horror of the creature with two heads, armed with long claws that dangled from an arm attatched to a shrivelled shoulder, attatched to a a torso that carried a neck that carried a head that rotated in such a way that no human could imitate and not snap his neck, which bended backwards with the spine at an abnormal, painful-looking angle, straightening only partially as if half its backbone got sliced off so it couldn't straighten all the way, then falling into this freakish contortion again and again, drunk in thoughts...if it HAD thoughts. Such a creature couldn't think...it couldn't be...POSSIBLE for a THING like that to think..  
  
Persian managed to state the unnecessary obvious as its nose quivered at the unfamiliar smell, filling it with sadness instead of the fear that unyieldingly gripped the other Rockets by their throats.  
  
"Mrrrrreeeeeowwwwww....." That isn't the master...  
  
"I tink we know dat, Persian...!" Meowth squeaked, backing into Jessie's shaking leg. What had saved them from rot could easily kill them. It looked dangerous enough. The huge chunks of ice it hurled from the tips of its claws was testimony of a powerful creature they dared not even THINK of capturing. But what they didn't know was that the creature was far more than simply a danger: they were faced with the deadliest creature that haunted the Shin-Ra Mansion basement: Yin-Yang.  
  
Truly, whatever had created this, nature or man, had a sick mind. Yin-Yang, the female, darkness and earth, the male, light and heavens, were necessary for balance. When both existed, there was balance. But this monster.....when both existed, there was only havoc. And nature has an order to its chaos, so it could only have been the twisted hand of man that had sculpted this gruesome parody, for there was only chaos of the lowest kind that left the mutilated bodies of mauled victims in its wake.  
  
No doubt it itself looked gruesome to anyone but its creator. Two heads instead of one, claws instead of nails, the body---and as Jessie looked closer, bodies, hideously out of proportion...so completely...inhuman...  
  
But that's what disturbed her the most. It was ugly. It was an eyesore. It was hideous. If so......  
  
Why did it look so human?  
  
They, not it. Whatever. They weren't human, so it didn't matter what you called them.  
  
A flying bolt that sizzled the dank air forced her, Meowth, and Persian to move closer. James and Victreebel still were unconscious and frozen in the danger zone, but they'd wait it out..and hope James didn't get hit with the volley.  
  
She looked up from behind one of the open coffins. God, now she could see their ribs through their skin. Gross. Disgusting. The muscle through the skin. The veins through the skin. The needlemarks.....oh, great. A monster on drugs. No wonder it couldn't see straight when it leaped out of the doorway and raised a claw to strike her partner dead.  
  
Damn it, James! Snap out of it already!  
  
Chucking all sense out the window, Jessie grabbed Meowth and Persian and dashed through the doorway, not noting that the door was still intact. The monster had to get in SOME how...they didn't walk through walls. What need had they for pushing open a door? Wouldn't a true beast rush the door, knowing no other way?  
  
This was NOT the time to spend on logic......  
  
"Arbok-----" Jessie flung the cold metal globe into the rock, releasing her cobra in a flash of light. It had its mouth on its wounded tail, staring at its master rather listlessly. "Wrap!" The heavy snake slithered towards Yin-Yang, its menacing nature propelling it towards the target......until Yin-Yang turned around. Arbok's hiss turned into a sorry hack in its throat, too paralyzed with terror at the hideous visage to coil itself around its wiry body. Arbok retreated, meeting Jessie's furious glare and the red light that sucked it back into the Ball. "What's WRONG with you---?!......" Jessie started to demand, but found Yin-Yang advancing for them, hatred in their eyes as electricity crackled within one hand. Like a Thundershock or Thunderbolt... Nothing they weren't hit with before, but.....  
  
Her gut feeling told her that this electricity would be much...MUCH...stronger.  
  
"Meowth, get you and that cat out of here right now----!"  
  
"Aye-aye, sir...!" Meowth shook his head so hard it rattled, grabbed Persian by the tail and took off at maddening speed, leaving Jessie alone with Yin- Yang. She swallowed the terror in her saliva and lunged for the door, narrowly escaping the electric bolts that superheated the air behind her. She landed on her chest, the deformed, sickly hand of the creature embedding in the rock where her head was. Forget the hair...she told herself, shoving away her vanity and rolling across the ground, each miss a closer shave than the one before it. She outstretched a hand, grabbed James' PokéBall, and recalled the frozen plant. Yin-Yang was right above her. Their breath clung cold to her neck. Her other hand shot out through the cobwebs, grabbing her partner's icy hand and they sprinted for their lives.  
  
The Rockets moved rapidly despite the heavy darkness, the bats in half- force merely adding to the shadows that crawled lightning-quick across the rock formations. Meowth lagged behind, his weight much less than Persian's, and Jessie had already dragged James on the first step. His ears caught Yin-Yang's groan through his own straining, and he hauled Persian's tail on his shoulder, finally reaching the flight of stairs that looked longer now that they needed to get the hell out of there.  
  
But they had to. There was no room for failure.  
  
Their frantic steps grew fainter and fainter on the stairs, until the crashes of the bookcase echoed through the basement, as the intruders slipped through the opening and escaped the nightmare of the basement.  
  
Whether they made it to the mansion's exit, though.....  
  
Silence ensued once more, broken by the flurries of squealing bats Again it was a tomb undisturbed by the truly alive, its dead left to writhe and suffer alone.  
  
But there were other profaners of the crypt, of the kind who lost one of their own to the center coffin in the chamber plagued with death, and of the kind whose hands were dipped in the blood of the sacrifice.  
  
They were not stealthy as the others had been: they had no intention of keeping their presence secret. One was bound by Kanto and Jouto law, but now he was under the protection of Shin-Ra, who overlooked the most inhuman atrocities as long as their loyalties remained with the company.....  
  
Two Turks flanked the scientist on either side. It was stock knowledge that Turks didn't question scientists to their face. Turks didn't live long anyways with all that booze; they didn't want to make their lifespan shorter than it already was. So they didn't ask why the dude with the pink rock sent them back to Gaia with the geezer with square glasses. Just Elena's luck that her boss and her got split up...some dogshit about "keeping the Earth gate open" or some crap like that. Yet as desperately in love with her superior as she was, she stayed professional for the sake of both their hides. They were following an escaped CON, for Odin's sakes.  
  
A real prick, if you asked him. Why couldn't he push this eyesore that weighed at least six tons himself? HE was the one with the goose egg the size of Corel Desert, why should he do more work than he was paid to do? Damn, people with brains get it so easy, the Turk grumbled mentally.  
Even on wheels, pushing the load was a bitch, especially with those bats brushing past his neck. One of them swooped on his skin that jumped at the stiff fur and he slugged the thing with his rod. A spark of electricity crawled down the iron stick as the bat fell with a halted screech. He kicked it out of the way and suddenly found the scientist's needle-thin eyes on him with that perpetual coy look. Annoying more than unnerving. Which would've been a good thing if he didn't coerce them into lugging this "essential equipment" that this guy...Sebashen or Sebastien or something like that refused to tell him what it did even though they were the ones that were transporting it. There's scientists for ya. He didn't doubt that when they got to where they were going he'd kick them out and they'd never see what hapless guinea pig'd suffer today.  
  
Not that they really wanted to, but...even if he let them witness today's, they wouldn't be able to get inside the lab.  
  
No sooner had they rounded the rough outer section of the stone wall, Elena froze and stopped pushing. Directly in front of them was Yin-Yang, incensed by the appearance of more humans..they moaned in hate-filled desperation... what more could he do to them? What more could he take from them? On that day, he took everything in the name of the sadistic god of science. Their hair, teeth..bones...he was in no way accurate...the infusion itself destroyed half their body. He didn't even hear their cries of agony.  
  
Then they were smashed together, "adjusted" to fit because the stitches wouldn't stay any other way. He sliced off whole limbs...stuffed them back in the maimed bodies so no one would find the chopped-off arms and legs..the Mako would dissolve it anyway.  
  
No one except him knew why they wandered the basement searching for humans to kill. And as this hated scientist drew a handheld device from the side of his belt and aimed it at the deformed monster, no one ever will.  
  
"Leave this disposal to me," ordered the scientist curtly, the glint of Reno's electrically-charged rod catching on his square spectacles. Electricity.....hm.... That was his developed point, his forté. It was an excellent time to test his miniaturized version of the Evolution Inducement Wave on this animal.  
  
He raised it in the direction of the hideous monster. and turned the dial until it couldn't turn farther, rays of electricity radiating from the center of the machine in silent but deadly pulses.  
  
It was designed for Pokémon. To make the process of evolution premature and push foward their biological clock. The sickness the wave caused was even deadly for them if under its persistent grip for too long. But for a Gaian monster.....  
  
Yin-Yang clutched almost human-like at their chest, wavered, shook under the force that ripped through their body, wresting a tortured moan from its lips as the wave stopped what remained of its blood, and it crumpled to the ground, motionless as Professor Sebastian rolled the body out of the way with a light kick. Unwittingly he put their tormented souls to rest. Even if in Sebastian's mind, it was an animal, not unlike the organism he expected that he and another Jouto scientist would use for experimentation. He hadn't seen the animal yet...supposedly it underwent a total "Mako" infusion. Professor Elm planned to extract it, though he failed to tell him how exactly the process worked. In fact, he did not tell him much at all. Surely the younger scientist wouldn't hide these details from his senior. Of course, he'd never been to Gaia, and was inexperienced with this new chemical. Until now, he used the standard mixture, codenamed "Black Rain" to enhance specific abilities of Pokémon. As far as Mako went, his expertise was very limited.  
  
It promised to be quite the variation in his career. Team Rocket scientists  
  
rarely collaborated with the so-called respectables. This would be quite interesting...perhaps when they started, the disapproving leer would fade from his features as he stepped into what resembled a disaster area...... The broken door lay flat at the entrance...archaic instruments, uncleaned from the gold liquid that coated them, lay helter-skelter on a tray dropped carelessly on a table with a missing leg. Dents from claw-marks stood in the liquid that dried over older blood that streaked the floor cracked in some places, the fractures made obvious in the yellow light of he bulbs that hadn't blown out yet..... books scattered in one corner, overturned microscopes with broken eyepieces, and glowing green tubes..containment structures of some kind, and.....in the center.. .."Of all the peculiarities that still exist....." he exhaled a perturbed breath, stepping on the floor that whimpered from the atrocities it witnessed and could not eradicate the ugly memory soaked in brutal patterns of blood.  
  
The table was not much different. He walked in the direction of the blood-encrusted object and looked upon its surface. Something had destroyed the straps. In rage, probably. An animal that had this ferocious tendency had to be subdued, but.....He alternated a glance between the floor and the rusted scalpel. Maybe that was an animal's blood...to actually break the skin in the process? Even he, the most efficient and, consequently, cruelest Team Rocket scientist in history deemed it quite excessive.  
  
Too excessive, Sebastian grimaced as he examined the room more closely. Shackles, branding irons, a pillory, a rawhide whip stared him in the face. He found himself reeling slightly, edging back until he bumped into the machine the Turks were pushing across the whimpering floor. More than slightly unnerved, he absently gripped the tarp with his fingers and disgustedly muttered, "This is not a laboratory, it's a torture chamber."  
  
Reno managed to stutter a gaggle of random letters not fully joined to make a coherent word. Admittedly, he was scared shitless. Elena the same. I mean, how in all hell did their WONDERFUL president overlook THIS? People, 'specially crazies, didn't change so easy. When Shin-Ra moved from Nibelheim to Midgar didn't the prez SEE any of this? No one gave a damn about labrats anyway, that was their problem, but sweet SHIVA, this wasn't no standard surgery. It seriously looked like someone died on the wall. Heck with that, it looked more than just one person. Hundreds.....THOUSANDS could've painted and re-painted the walls with their blood.  
  
Wonder if this's what happened to 'old Valentine' Lena keeps on talking about, A sordid thought bowled through his mind and struck the back of his brain with a gut-piercing blow.  
  
Sebastian stood pensively. His long and lucrative career seemed downgraded and debased...for a space of a quarter of a millisecond, he felt guilty on the basis of the requirements of his profession. "Only an animal," he reassured himself. "Only an animal....." As if that word suddenly struck something in his short-term memory, he turned to Elena and Reno snappishly and ordered, "You've done your task, now leave. I won't have unnecessary witnesses."  
  
Witnesses...even the SCIENTIST thought it was a crime. Too bad they couldn't arrest him themselves. But they had a job and they weren't about to put it in jeopardy even if it meant some worthless life got wasted. No way. As atrocious, barbaric, and downright sick the lab was, they wouldn't run to the cops, squeal, put braniac back in jail 'cause they knew what'd happen.  
  
Pretty soon they'll be askin' questions. It'll go straight up the ladder until they get to the top. The prez'll get off easy with his 30 dozen lawyers and we'll be in a heap of crap when he finds out--Reno walked ten times faster while staring over his shoulder at the dim light that crawled out from the..."lab". This didn't even try and hide it like the lab at Vermillion HQ did with its sterilizings and vague cover-ups on what was happening behind the door----like when the caged animal dropped dead from the poison it didn't seem so bad, but this outright shrieked all its warped purposes real loud.....so what if it happened to animals but that table was HUMAN-SIZED...and that was human blood spattering the walls.....  
  
The braniac couldn'tve said it better, really. A torture chamber. They had the gods to thank...they didn't want to see the next victim, the next poor idiot that would die in that room.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Who.....  
  
Are.....  
  
you?  
  
Cid brought a scarred hand up before his face, gazing into nothingness that squeezed between the cracks of his fingers. Fingers connected to hand he thought he knew so well.  
  
Key: thought. Now he questioned..he who had such a sure sense of himself, of who he was, what he was meant for..He couldn't help a forced laugh run though his tar-eaten lungs. Strife used to go through this shit.....now it's me that's askin' it...ha..ha.....  
  
The trapped dragon rose from the confines of the other half's mind and outstretched his wings smeared with gold and ebony blood. It was wounded. Cid had his spear. He could kill the nightmare right now, plunge the blade through his lungs. They were now separated. Now was the perfect time. No more voices in the head...no more fucking dragon screwing with his life...  
  
That's it. He'd do it. Sweat rolling down his hate-creased brow, he grasped the spear's handle with his ungloved hands and pulled.  
  
What the fuck-----?! He tightened his hold on the spear, pulling with all his might. The weapon was so...damn...heavy...how'd it get this----- He bent down at his knees and strained, face reddening from the pure........effort. Frustration turned to panic and panic became terror. He hurled ever oath he could think of at the weapon, getting the dragon's cruel laugh as an answer.  
  
You're more intelligent than that, Highwind. You need me to survive. Always remember that.  
  
I don't need no one! Cid rebuked hotly, on his knees now, desperately trying to lift that weapon he could easily toss up in his gloved hands and fly into battle---Fly---- the dragon gave him the desire to---to------  
  
That was when Cid realized the truth. He took quaking hands off the spear and stood up in desolate defeat.  
  
He's right....I ain't anybody without the stupid fucker. He stared at the dragon's grinning face. Jesus, he wanted so bad to stab that grin right off his face. But wait...he was smiling...that's just...that's what he WANTED him to think. Fucking idiot..he WAS somebody, goddamn it! He was Cid Highwind! He was...was..... Deteriorating??  
  
We are two halves of a whole. Though I'm far stronger than you.....  
  
Cid felt a queasy feeling rip through half his stomach as one whole side of his body fell off and landed on the ground with a clunk. He fell apart so easily..weak...the dragon was tryin to make him feel weak. He wasn't gonna fall for that one.  
  
Don't gimme that bullshit, Cid growled with one half of his mouth. He glared at the other half of his body lying limp in the darkness, that melted into the form of half the dragon. He began to crawl towards him, the single useless wing hanging broken and mangled at his side.  
  
Let me come out, he whispered almost imploringly. If Cid didn't know the little bastard he might've believed him. Might've believed him and gave in and before he knew it he'd be wrecking the world.  
  
Like I'm gonna trust you, Cid snorted. The dragon's breathing filled the whole space, self-assured and confident. He knew he'd win. Humans were soft. Every one of them was an Achilles.  
  
If he couldn't have control, he would bring misery to his host.  
  
Who DO you trust? Your friends? A laugh, long and low, haughty, scoffing, evil in its cruelty. I'll tell you something now, Highwind. Your "friends" have your hands tied to a bedpost. They didn't heal your wounds...they want you to bleed to death. Once they saw me they were scared. All humans are. Scared of us...see? I'm the only one who you can trust.  
  
A stubborn silence fell in the space.  
  
You still don't believe me, Highwind? The dragon's half revreted back to human, picking itself up and joining it with the other half. The moment they fused, the dragon roared a dictatorial command in his mind. Awake.  
  
Cid found himself unconsciously obeying as he sprang out of the haunted sleep and yanked his vexed eyes open. The blurred surroundings slowly became clear, a window bolted shut, the door locked, and.....what the friggin hell? He pulled himself foward so he could get the fuck out of this bed that wasn't his and get some answers fast.  
  
And to great irony found his wrists bound with rope.  
  
"This some kinda late April fool's?!" the pilot growled as he tugged hard, clonking the back of his head with the heel of his hands, still covered in dried blood. A spent Restore Materia lay dropped in haste on the floor. "So you're yellow, huh?!" shouted Cid at the top of his lungs. "'Fraid of yer own pilot?! That he's gonna bite ya when he can't even eat a stale bagel?!" His blue eyes bulged out of his sockets with incensed craze that gripped him by the neck and made him wheeze so hard he was almost unintelligble. "Don't think I don't hear ya talkin' when we're gonna fight Sephiroth----- 'All's we got is a stale bagel. Poor old man doesn't get it 'cause it'll break his teeth! Oh, yeah, I'll bite ya for sure------I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS!!!!" he howled, pulling on the bonds with all his might, the rope pushing into his wrists and making them rawer than they already were. It wasn't until he felt that warm blood drop onto the sheets that he dropped his arms in wasted defeat. He watched his chest rise and rattle, and fall the same way. A chronic cough aggravated his throat sore from yelling. Should'tve yelled so much... The more they'll think I'm like the dragon......He let his eyes close and tried to think about anything but the the rawness in his wrists and throat, the big fat ache in his spine 'cause it got twisted every which way but the right, and the loneliness..A lotta times he looked foward to days where it wouldn't be anyone but him and his airship. But now, more than ever, he wanted company..Any company, really. Even if it meant Tifa smacking him across the face for being a regular son of a bitch.  
  
But as the hours trudged by, he realized they wouldn't even give him that.  
  
Barret heard something like a sob from behind the door. Very brief like the sun's rays through perpetual storm clouds, but it was one of those things that made him wish he didn't have to do this. Especially at gunpoint. Fine if it was the Shin-Ra, but his old chess buddy? Damn, it really got to him. Really made a mess of things 'specially if the dragon popped up. Turn his gun on Cid Highwind? It ain't natural, man...  
  
It'd be a helluva lot easier if he didn't have a soul like the man guarding the window. No emotions...quick shot...painless for the heart 'cause Valentine don't have no heart, Barret thought with a heavy frown and a heavy sigh. He don't know what a heart is so he can kill Highwind quick if he gotta.  
  
The voice of Barret's comrade forced him off his mental train lost on a distant track.  
  
"How is he?" Tifa asked flatly, turning her head towards the door and sliding her glove on it absent-mindedly. She still couldn't come to terms with this...the truth...and to think that Red and Barret were responsible...she couldn't look either of them in the eyes. It was negligence on their part, pure carelessness.  
  
But deep in her heart, she knew she started this.  
  
Blaming them again, Tifa chided herself hotly. Barret's booming voice separated her thoughts.  
  
"He jes' got up," Barret heaved a sigh that attempted to be unconcerned but failed, the same "softness" that he once accused Tifa of nudging at his soul. "He's cryin', Tifa. Neva heard him cry befo'." The gravity in his booming voice weighed his giant form down." Cid ain't no sissy boy."  
  
Tifa read him tensely. Read the twitching in his muscle-bound arm. The gods knew he'd try and open that door. She turned her sweltering gaze on him and warned sternly,  
  
"Neither are you, Barret. Don't you dare open that door except to feed him. You know what would've happened if the dragon divebombed this place."  
  
How could he forget the Mako Reactor? It would haunt him forever, a ghost drifting among the ruins.  
  
"Jes' like Secta 1," Barret answered. Tifa toughened up again at the worst times. She got soft around Cloud, but a while not around him and she was hot stuff. Not that he couldn't see she felt guilty about it, too. But it looked like there wasn't no choice. Cid could really be in a worse predicament than he was now. That lady could just as easily say no as she said yes, then Cid could be lyin' out in the dirt. She was polite-like and let a complete stranger in her house and her guest bed.  
  
But this hospitality wasn't meant for all.  
  
Red stood tensely at the front door, ears attuned to the slightest intake of breath, instincts honed to their highest sensitivities to detect the dragon that was hiding in Cid. Or that WAS Cid... The wolf/lion felt the beginnings of a shudder run down his neck. He'd battled countless monsters before, but the dragon..Cid...he knew him...he warred at his side  
  
It was hard to kill him if he had to.  
  
That was the other thing.  
  
Would we be able to? Short of Chaos, he never saw a monster that destructive, that willing to destroy what nature built, take its victims and crush the blood out of their bodies. Already he heard isolated wailing and shouting pricking through the late morning air when they discovered their neighbors didn't get up for work because they were smashed underneath the broken pieces of their houses.  
  
There were others shouting..but it wasn't about the disaster. It was over the demon's motionless body forming a pool of night-hued blood in the road.  
  
"I won't believe that's Brock, Misty. He died in the Pewter City fire. You have to accept that," Mrs. Ketchum coaxed tiredly, closing her eyes against the sun that seemed too warm for a day like this. And Misty's anger was only making it worse. "I can't just take in strays like this...!" she finally threw up her hands and molded an explanation that in Misty's eyes, was a flimsy excuse.  
  
"You're afraid of him, aren't you?..!" Misty retorted with hot anger burning in her clenched fists. Rejection after rejection..this time from the one who was always the least cruel. But in her own subtle way, she shot him down like a marksman yanking a bird out of the sky.  
  
"Yes," she answered, folding her arms authoratively across her chest. "Just look at---at---it, Misty. I understand if it's a Pokémon, but it's a--"  
  
"Monster," the girl finished the sentence with clenched teeth, finally dropping her head on her chest in crushed resignation. When she looked at Mrs. Ketchum again, her eyes trickled tears that spread across her face and down her neck. "Give me a PokéBall," she was shy of pleading. Brock, for all his strength, wouldn't last long. God, there was so much blood...didn't she see how much there was? Pokémon died from blood loss too. It wasn't just humans.  
  
But she didn't see it, did she?  
  
Mrs. Ketchum reluctantly honored her request. The Ball seemed reluctant too, rolling off Brock's contorted body several times before it trapped him inside its metallic walls, landing in the blood and sending ripples that travelled towards the edge, an eerie disturbance in the silence. Misty plunged her hand in the ice-cold liquid and picked up the Ball.  
  
She grew as cold as the metal and the creature inside it, turning away from Ash and his mom and taking off, her own wounds not so painful anymore because she held a life in her hands. "Hang on," she managed to choke out as she headed northward. "You'll make it."  
  
As if she could actually believe that herself. She tried to keep from staring at her hand smeared in black blood. It would slow her down..make her doubt. She had to keep going, because...maybe she was carrying a corpse in that PokéBall.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Battered forests fell with the mindless train of creatures. With no control over their minds there was no need for advanced brain activity that would enable dexterous movements: with no brain came unstoppable strength.  
  
With this strength the whole system suffered. The giant reptillian tail snapped the trunks of the trees that crashed down on the Mankey and the Pidgey and made the Spearow riot and scatter where they would normally strike in vengeance. All reason they once posessed died: A sword struck through the air at random points, chopping the fleeing Spearow into many pieces that could contain what the master ordreed them to find. But they didn't.  
  
As the trees fell with deafening crashes so did the Mankey, maimed by the teeth of the airborne Ninetales casting the death shadow on the terrified creatures that got caught by the leg and pulled into the jaws that snapped closed, then spit them out a mangled corpse cut to ribbons. Other Mankey fled over the dying's bodies, all forms of camraderie traded for self-preservation and the pure drive to survive.  
  
Their drive wasn't strong enough. The feral roar warned them too late...when they saw the beast's eyes, it saw them.  
  
. The pathetic stumps that Draconis Rex left in his wake were slowly reduced to mulch as Team Rocket scoured the woods, destroyed them by their own selves..instead of the machines they once used to destroy. THEY were the machines, now. Angelon's machines....programmed to seek out and kill ANYTHING that stood between them and their command.  
  
Obey.  
  
Their brains now squeezed and rolled up to a tight ball so limited in capacity managed to form those four letters that spelled unchecked carnage in carved bone and tissue.  
  
Viridian was destroyed. Pewter was demolished. Pallet's north forest was annhialated.  
  
All for what would annhialate the entire globe.  
  
If Zero-X FELT anything without a brain to tell it to feel something, it felt the wind blow the dirt in the cracks in his reptillian hide. The obliterated trees cried from the vast grave. They were silenced as its claws dug into their ground-up forms, releasing a massive roar as it moved foward with the armed human and the winged death tailing him, their mark on the land cruelly obvious with the wind stirring up bald dirt that leapt obediently and collapsed lifeless into the earth.  
  
Kanto had been scratched harder. Right?  
  
*~*~*  
  
Team Rocket Headquarters was as scorched as Pewter. The latter was shrouded in ashes, the former was shrouded in corpses.  
  
The boss of Team Rocket didn't recognize his own hideout he destroyed himself. Had he been aware, his already gored pride would simply shrivel up and die. But Angelon was more merciful than Ivy..he would keep them his mindless drudges.....until it stopped being convenient.  
  
A witless growl grew from the misshapen vocal chords of the huge beast, penetrating the air heavy with rot. A pile of bodies lay static across the clearing. To them, without mind, those bodies were obstacles to be destroyed. They threw them, tore them in half, and the more obviously animal weren't above making a meal of their search.  
  
Activities that required no deliberation they found simple. Because it was instinct. The primal craving to ingest other beings in order to survive. Herbivores preyed on plants, omnivores preyed on both, carnivores preyed on solely the meat of others.  
  
And what a benefit for Angelon...no guilt unless they ever returned to this specific point. Guilt was such a hinderance to moving foward....so he simply vanquished it.  
  
He felt faint in his stark white limbs. A mental sensation. The image connected itself in his brain, pulsing with light that persisted in draping his body with the robe of heaven. His hand slipped from its side and pressed lightly on his forehead. A smile of the purest sincerity spread across his lips.  
  
They have found it.  
  
That seal of this infant apocalypse swirled calmly within his mind as he himself rescinded the white shroud and vanished not so differently than a Kadabra uses Teleport.  
  
He covered miles in moments. The white light exploded in front of Butch who was kneeing one of the corpses in the abdomen, both hands wrapped around the glint of smooth metal. His eyes were aflame with hypnotized gaze that spilled in white falls out of his eyes blocking out his earthy pupils.. and any sign of mental autonomy. He blankly stared up at his master that nodded approvingly, sending appraisal through his empty mind as a human rewards his dog.  
  
"Good boy," he told him, taking the canister from him and transferring it from the human's hands to his. He ran his blunt claws over the surface. "However, that address will no longer fit you when everlasting night falls upon your head." The other canisters began to rise from the heap of corpses wrapped around the concrete and plaster, moving the mass of mutilated bodies with its tremendous weight. Nothing but stupid silence from the Pokémon when at any other time the hatred of hell would stir them to slay the angel for forcing them to mangle the corpses still hungering for the shred of peace that death promised them.  
  
Angelon now stood atop this altar of bodies, his claws pushing into their broken skin. His fur-covered tail brushed their open eyes in subtle malice...here you lie dead, now I soil your corpses with my soiled self...lower than you am I now? I think not. He lifted the steel cylinders, their lids shaking in fear as the light swarmed them and attacked the seal. The light penetrated, gripping the lid and the rim and separating them, a crack barely visible through the massive light flood. Angelon's white eyes closed, raising his curved claws to the heavens, as if invoking some holy energy as well as channeling the psychic energy that coursed through him in endless currents. His eyes opened again. The light flowed around the lid, white-hot light disintegrating the deceptively indestructible adhesive  
  
A steady growl emitted from the cover, the substance within clamoring against the door that was finally about to be unlocked. The growl chorused the others, shuddering as the light dissolved the thing that sealed the storm.  
  
The angel let his eyes open. "Witness and behold..." The cover snapped and clattered on the ground and the bodies. The bubbling liquid that heat and pressure evaporated into a gas poured out in vengeful columns, fleeing from its prison and enveloping the creatures rooted so near it. Something withered in their trapped souls. The animal slayed the human and burned its corpse.  
  
But only one of them felt it.  
  
Butch doubled over with his nails digging in his gut. The gas engulfed him, and cast an infinite moon that would control him. No longer would the sun command his destiny...it would be the moon alone.  
  
The transformation tangled the strings. The Rocket fell to his knees and dropped the sword, his cry hoarse and near inaudible.  
  
"God damn......" he croaked, the white glow in his eyes fading to brown. He clutched the ground, sweat pouring in droplets that choked the earth. He brought one knee foward and stumbled, landing on his side with the gas overtaking him more rapidly than he could flee. It forced the moon though the sun shone furiously bright in the heavens, made Celine forever in hs gaze.  
  
And it was at that moment, as he shrunk down to a wart-infested pipsqueak, the human in him dead as the gas razed his spirit and he somehow knew the same thing happened to the others, all because of the chemical that they now had set loose on the world, when he realized how big a mistake they made.  
  
The temporary freedom came from the break in Butch's mind. He succumbed to the psychic power and control of his thoughts crumbled filling it with the one command of obey.  
  
The gas rose and pushed for the ignorant clouds.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The monsters rendered a hot day an inferno.  
  
Chilled sweat ran down the PokéBall in Misty's blood-covered hands. The black blood hardened on her skin like water freezing to ice, but far colder, far bleaker than the frozen mountains of Kanto. As inhospitable and unforgiving as death itself. A death that wasn't far from the demon.  
  
All because of that dragon. If the dragon didn't attack, Brock's life wouldn't be in that PokéBall she clutched with acrid, vitriolic grasp. She wouldn't be heading through bare territory with no trees in sight to act as landmark, with the sun hanging in the middle of the sky and grinning in malice at her and the wounded demon. The muggy air that told of coming rains only made it worse. The metal of the Ball glued to her skin, fueling and fueled by the heat that made the black blood and the red blood hot. And she was running....stopped...caught her breath, ran again over bare land that stretched into the distance.  
  
"Stupid.....dragon..." Her breath came in hoarse pants, and she let herself drop, succumbing to human weakness. After all, that's what she was, right? Just a human.....just the weak product of her weak parents who were born of their weak parents whose moms and dads were weak and it continued down the family tree. "Why her, of all people?" Misty asked herself in short ragged breaths, one hand cupped on a knee, the other pressing the cold Ball into her leg. She stared up with the bitter nostalgia that comes from falling victim to a false illusion. "You were the one who helped him.... You found him in the field..." She cast her gaze at the ground, blurred by the sweat that ran down her forehead. "Right here..." No grass. Maybe that's why it was so unbearably hot....why each step drained her of her already limited stamina. She inhaled the sultry air, pointing at the ground semi-wistfully, that hardened to anger as she couldn't find it because it was gone. So was the field of reckless adventures that used to end in lighthearted goodbyes.  
  
If she didn't keep running, this one would kill her if heatstroke and blood loss failed to. Dizziness ate at her with frenzied appetite. She barely noticed the shadow that overtook hers. The skid of bike tires coughed dust in the broiled air. Misty walked a scant few steps before collapsing into the dust, the PokéBall still stuck to her limp hand.  
  
"You'd never make it anyway..Viridian City's too far," the older girl shook her head regretfully and boarded Misty on her bike, whisking some of the hair out of her eyes to witness the hint of silver in the clouds. "One more rain before the angel ends the world," May murmured The hot stagnancy before the warm fronts and cold fronts, the dropping barometric pressure..yep, there'd be a storm.  
  
She clutched at her chest, the leftover ache stirring her memory. "'..The end of this world will be brought by a flood..'" She craned her neck and stared at the sky heavy witb grey clouds.....no different from any other storm. It can't be the apocalypse....no way.  
  
The angel was cruel, she knew that well enough. But to destroy the world with rain that enabled plants to photosynthesize and Pokémon and people to drink and that relieved the burden of the sun....that was evil.  
  
Besides, one blast in the chest wouldn't turn her into an evangelical nut, warning a skeptical audience about the end of the world.. When pain lifted fear could as well. She wheeled her bike with the unconscious girl slumped over the handlebars, the heat a parasite to its host.  
  
*~*~*  
  
"...And now for the weather...highs in the upper 80s with lows in the mid 60s...10 % chance of scattered showers in the Kanto region..."  
  
The TV droned while people and a Pokémon there wasn't any data in his PokéDex for that tried to kill Brock marched in front of the guest room upstairs and a man that turned into a dragon----  
  
Huh?  
  
Piece by piece that perfect day slipped into hellish chaos. He really ddin't know what was what anymore and why was why, where was why and when was where and especially.....  
  
Who was what and what was who.  
  
Ash switched off the TV and sat up, idlely spooning some food in his mouth. It tasted good but there was none to share that good with. He wanted to give some to Pikachu but it was dead. He wanted to shout "this is great!", always full of life and energy of youth and determination, but Misty was gone and so was Brock and he didn't know where his mom was and he couldn't walk because Misty broke his leg. Oh yeah... LOTS to shout joyfully about. TONS.  
  
The clouds darkened to a grey-black. Oh, look. They lied.  
  
*~*~* . The bike tires made long tracks in the boiled dirt as the pedals and gears and chains moved under human power. It swerved and bowed, May forced to run at the bike's side and push it from there. How much easier it would be if she could get on the seat like she usually did and race into a wind that would blow freer than it was right now, allowing burned air to reign and exhaust her, too. When it was hot, that was one thing, and when it was humid, that was another. Hard to move when hot, hard to breathe when humid. There was something about it that choked, strangled, cut the air flow and left a person begging for the skies to open their locked doors.  
  
Approaching noon when the heat budget was a surplus, the sun donned its most brutal mask and paraded wildly, flailing a whip of fire.  
  
May rubbed sweat off her brow with her knuckles and steered the bike through the obliterated forest. Forest...there WAS a forest here. What happened to it.....? Did the angel..? She aimed her head down and saw footprints and clawprints carved in the dirt.The light in the sky was gone. The angel wouldn't be coming back.....but the fear tugged at the back of her brain that they were somehow going the wrong way...that maybe she took one wrong turn and was actually heading....  
  
The girl slowed and stopped her bike, the spin of the wheels broken by the sudden pause. "'You will be the first to fall...'" She looked up at the low-hanging clouds that gathered militantly over her head. The wheels marked their tracks again as she headed for the ever-darkening distance.  
  
Though the sky was silent it roared in its own way, as the parts of the beast became functional and it stood ferocious and hate-filled, as the ebony gas rose higher into the depths of the sky, where the individual particles cooled, condensed...  
  
Just another thunderstorm. Go inside and you'll be okay.  
  
Go inside and hide from your neighbors you deprive of sustenance.  
  
Don't you dare drink this rain.  
  
It WILL kill you.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Night came in its noble ebony cloak of enormity. The forecast hadn't changed, the weather cooled down, the moon rose, chased by the bloated storm clouds that felt sick from the contaminants that mixed with the millions of water droplets that readied to precipitate and quench the screaming land. The baby asks for water and the parent contemplated if they would mix poison in it when it wasn't looking.  
  
Something was wrong. May should've reached Viridian by now, but...All there was was a giant pile of ruin and the monsters and....the angel. She shuddered in leashed terror, fearful, but knowing he couldn't see her. If he couldn't see her, he couldn't hurt her. But there was something..not the angel himself, but what was AROUND him that gripped her gaze and forced her to witness the fall.  
  
Surrounding the perpetual light were pillars of gas that swirled into one giant chimney of what looked like smoke that piled into the clouds pregnant with rain. A low rumble of thunder reverberated in her ears. "Rain clouds don't look like that....." the girl observed with suspicion brimming from her voice. She stared into the clouds as a lightning bolt raced through the sky and illuminated the outline of the tumbling chaos.  
  
The first droplets tore loose and plunged into the ground inches away from May's foot. She lifted a shocked gaze and got hit in the eye with a raindrop. "Aghhhhhhhh........" Her vision melted and reformed and she ran towards Misty, the black drops landing on her head and snaking down her hair. She grabbed the other girl's shoulder, taken by panic, and shook her roughly. "Hey..wake up.....there's something really wrong with this rain-- we've got to--" The drops fell faster, landing on her scalp. She instinctively brought up her arm to shield herself, but a few drops smacked her arm. Oh, God..... This wasn't rain. She'd stood out in the rain before and she knew what rain felt like. This wasn't it. In fact..as she felt more of it fall against her skin, leaving black drops rolling down its sides, sticky in texture.....she could have sworn it was blood.  
  
But it couldn't be blood. Blood didn't fall from the sky. Not by human nor divine will did blood rain. Blood if it wasn't yours wasn't painful. It didn't make every bone and muscle and sinew twist and writhe in anguish. It didn't change your skin into different colors.....wait...a....minute....??  
  
Rain, rain, go away.  
  
She screamed her lungs out and fell into the dirt transforming to mud. The same way....she was..changing.....She stared into the rain-immersed sky. Now it was a deluge. "I---don't believe it," May gasped for breath, and got rain in her mouth instead, the liquid spurting out of her mouth as she closed her fists on the earth. She shut her eyes against the merciless rain, trying to believe she could ignore what was happening so she wouldn't feel it as much.  
  
Come again another day.  
  
Misty entered consciousness with the sight of the hairy jointed leg of a Beedrill plunge into the mud next to her head. Her eyes shot open and she bolted upright, her chest heaving. The rumble of the storm roared in her ears, and she backed up on one hand, ignorant of what was happening to her OWN body, unaware that the rain coursed down her arm lacing it with the ravaging chemical......at least not until a vine shot from the wall of liquid and lashed at the mud. Misty fell over backwards and toppled on her side, at that moment glancing down at where the vine had struck and then saw her leg.  
  
"Wh--what the---?.!!" She looked at it. It was...scaling over...it was..She felt her leg. Rock-hard scales that made her cringe from the pain of formation. But it wasn't nearly as painful...as it was terrifying. This is what she'd woken up to...what glared her in the face and laughed raucously at her sudden demise. "What's going on here...!??!" Misty demanded the creature, that leaped into her terrified view, some hideous mixture of what LOOKED like a Victreebel growing out of the back of a wingless Beedrill. LOOKED like...maybe it wasn't: that was the extent of its deformities. Couldn't even tell for sure...but one thing she knew: it was a meat-eater, the way it stared at her with its crimson eyes that bulged from the side of its misshapen head. "Don't look at me like that---" She backed up, unaware that her lower jaw locked as the Black Rain flowed down it. The Victreedrill's eyes burned into hers. It wanted food and no one was going to stop it from getting it.  
  
Lightning ripped a white wound across the blackness. Misty stopped edging backwards, rooting herself to the spot. The Black Rain continued to pour in its tremendous masses, changing the mind as well as the body. The scales barely began to run up her elbow when Victreedrill lunged for its prey.....  
  
A frightening power shot through Misty and she struck the creature between the mandibles, that collapsed in the mud on its backs with its legs circling in the air, its vines quickly covered by the mud that the storm raised up...and it retreated before the more powerful force that now emerged from the human.  
  
"Whas rong weh may?" Misty asked herself... something was wrong with that...how come she couldn't...close.. her.....stupid...mouth...arghh...! She took her hands and pushed on her lower jaw, finding it held fast....and..that was covered in...scales..... too.....holy...holy God almighty, what was HAPPENING to her??? Scales.....hard granitic scales like an Onix except of a fish...a sea-dweller..... like a.....  
  
The vocal chords tightened and forbade words.  
  
"GRAAAAARGHHHHH!!!!!!"  
  
The travesty of what researchers labelled the Atrocious Pokémon emerged from the girl, a tremendous roar clashing with the thunder. It raised its claws that glinted in the lightning flash, the PokéBall slipping loose from its grip and dropping into the dark mud, activating the mechanism that expelled the white light that had the demon sprawled weakly out in the earth, his form of midnight indistinguishable from the deepening pools of rain as the liquid poured.  
  
And as it poured it traded his wounds for his latent humanity.  
  
Where's that coming from?  
  
"HHUOOARRGHHH?"  
  
He heard the roar. It sounded..like him... Gemini pushed himself upright with his elbows and jumped into a squat, his wiry tail sweeping the mud behind him. His vision started to come back into focus, the black rivers of rain streamed down his face as he gazed into the angry heavens, bloodied fangs lit up by a brief flash of lightning. He heard the roar again. Wait...the demon drove scale-covered knuckles against his forehead, trying to remember through the distracting thunder and persistent rain.  
  
Now he remembered. He turned into a demonic dragon, in the literal sense of the world...he stopped the other dragon..not before...it flew through Pallet..bastard...Ash and Misty were the only thing he had left...the ONLY thing.....  
  
Misty?! Brock growled in his unintelligible voice, answered by a roar twice as incoherent and plagued with a rage that equalled his. He snapped his head over his shoulder, his forked tongue instinctively rattling between his fangs. He raked the mud with his steel-like claws and landed in front of the owner of that garbled roar...and found himself losing all feeling in his muscles as he fell on the back of his legs, shocked to the very core of his soul.  
  
The white flash in the sky brought the hideous creature to light for a split second. It was a Gyarados. Grey scales instead of aqua, grown a few limbs that flailed viciously, the roar that communicated a terrible command.  
  
DIE.  
  
No remnant of humanity except the tatters of...a yellow midrift that the beast tore away, hate burning in its eyes hard as slate and thrice as cold. Gemini saw it.....HER.....growl, and outstretched his own claws that the Black Rain couldn't clean the blood off of, and edged foward on his knees. No WONDER the rain alleviated his pain and healed his wounds...it was evil...like him...and now the evil rain buried his friend in the Pit.  
  
His chest and lungs were racked with rueful sobs that twisted into bitternes as he rolled towards the creature and clamped his claws as gently as this brutal form allowed on her flailing arm. It...WAS a her, right? Was it that hard to tell?  
  
Gemini gripped her...ITS...other arm, tried to cradle it, hold it, SOMETHING to make it feel better, to stop the hatred that the hateful, abominable rain ingrained in it.  
  
"GRAAAGHHHHH....!!!!"  
  
Slash.  
  
Brock backed away from the raging monster. He lifted his claw to his cheek. It was wet...he couldn't tell if he bled or it was the rain. Damnit...so hard to tell..He gazed enraged at the sky that laughed with its thunder. Because it's raining blood.....He closed his deformed fists, the claws piercing the palm. His blood was the hue of midnight. The rain was the same. He could rip himself limb from limb and it WOULDN'T MATTER... Yeah...why don't I do that right now...? he resolved in crazed desperation. He brought up a shaking claw, and tore through the place where the shoulder connects to the torso, mad with pain..pain that disappeared a moment later. He saw the wound mend before his eyes. No.....he growled dismally, taking the claw away. Suicide was stupid. With the damn rain..he couldn't kill himself. Why was he doing it? Stupid. Irrational. Like the monster he was.  
  
Gemini stared longingly at the disappearing form of his friend. Rejection... This one tore his soul in half. This was his closest friend. Dead. Hostile to him like she NEVER knew him. But.....he was the same way, right? When he was getting used to.....conforming to...the instincts...So the table of misfortune turned and trapped her underneath..  
  
He could...BRING her back, right? If not...not to her human form...then at LEAST her senses.  
  
Who was he kidding? He KNEW that once the chemical was introduced, there was no fully going back.  
  
But he could save her mind.  
  
Gemini plunged through the massive sheets hammering with the weight of boulders shattering on his shoulders as he pursued the grey form through the deluge.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Rufus had had enough headache for one night. He was going to go down the elevator, get in his white limo, drive straight home, and go into bed and forget this was even happening.  
  
"I work my tail off for Shin-Ra /Silph Inc---" He curled the fingers of his hand masked in that tangled...fur around a pen. A growl cracked through the secretive smile as he couldn't maintain a hold on that...CONFOUNDED pen...it defeated the purpose and made the correction unsavoury in his hair-matted lips. "SHIN-RA Inc. I think I deserve a vacation," he snarled shortly, slamming the pen down on his desk and rising briskly from his chair, boring his ice gaze into the opposite wall that seemed to writhe underneath it.  
  
A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky and made Rufus yelp. It wasn't until he'd knocked over the ceramic plate of fried karp on the floor that it registered in his brain that he was standing on ALL FOURS on the table. He let himself down and stared at the mess. Whatever. He wasn't going to clean that up. As he headed for the door with his nails digging in his temples, he growled in evident frustration, "I KNOW I deserve a vacation."  
  
Rufus got the hint that if he was in a hurry, the elevator would descend its slowest in order to infuriate him further. Not that everything in the past few days hadn't already DONE that...  
  
38.  
  
37.  
  
36.  
  
35.  
  
Rufus found himself pushing the Lobby button repeatedly though he knew very well that wouldn't make this damned machine descend any faster. The sooner he reached his car, which was not difficult to find, as he was the only citizen who owned an automobile of ANY type in this backwards city, the sooner he would forget that the executive in charge of the science department was responsible for this, the sooner he could arm his thoughts and fashion the means of removing him from the Shin-Ra hiearchy after, of course, he located and re-captured the four creatures, and the sooner he could find and have that infernal dragon destroyed.  
  
34.  
  
33.  
  
32.  
  
31.  
  
The dragon....a brief smile of an adult laughing at his infantile self crept over his lips covered in an orange-brown hair. He used to like dragons. He found majesty in their flight, the higih reaches of the universe he thought were achievable. They were something he envied. But now...hah.. It was a childhood fancy, nothing more. He knew he could never reach space, and laughed at and scorned those who still thought it possible. Especially the pilot of the Shin-Ra 026. If he ever saw a fool, that would be him. Imagine...wasting ten years of his life lamenting a dream. First man in space. Ah-hahha...right.  
  
33.  
  
32.  
  
31.  
  
30.  
  
The Space Program was worthless as his father said it was, representing the farfetched dreams of a negligible minority that did not support big business anyway. Palmer himself was from a backwoods community that leaped off the gutters believing that they would fly if they caught the wind at a precise angle. You see how long that village survived.  
  
29.  
  
28.  
  
27.  
  
26.  
  
Aviation was an impractical pursuit. If you cannot keep your feet on the ground, and look ahead instead of up where humans are not designed to reach, what is the point of it? No answer? That is because there is no use for it.  
  
25.  
  
24.  
  
23.  
  
22.  
  
Besides, Rufus Shin-Ra was a man of power, prestige, and money. And the money was here on the ground, not raining from the clouds.  
  
21.  
  
20.  
  
19.  
  
18.  
  
And on the subject of rain...there was another burst of thunder. He loathed that noise. His ears could detect more. Thunder never previously bothered him, but now it had become intolerable. He clutched the side of the elevator, beads of perspiration entangled in the fur. All of this fur......  
  
17.  
  
16.  
  
15.  
  
14.  
  
The headache did not strip him of ALL logic, at least. He still knew that one plus one equalled three and that it---no, that wasn't right. Perhaps it was four? Maybe five?  
  
13.  
  
12.  
  
11.  
  
10.  
  
At any rate, it rained during a thunderstorm. When he left his cat in the rain, it smelled. Wet fur...the very thought made himc ringe in revulsion. Wet fur..It produced a rank odor that rivalled the fish still stuck between his teeth. The solution was a toothpick.  
  
9.  
  
8.  
  
7.  
  
6.  
  
Forget it, he would only drop it.  
  
5.  
  
4.  
  
3.  
  
2.  
  
It would only heighten his fury.  
  
1.  
  
Rufus stepped out of the elevator with as much dignity and poise as he could manage, which at this stage, was not much. He neared the door with awkward tread, stumbling and tripping as if from a bad hangover. From milk and fish, he snarled acidly as he neared the glass doors, hammered by the rain. At least it would cloak his unsavory form. No one would see him.  
  
The president of Shin-Ra/Silph pushed the handle of the glass doors and emerged at the entrance, finding himself being confronted by giant, foaming dogs in SOLDIER uniforms, their pupil-less eyes glowing a fierce crimson visible through the face masks that hid their identity... as well as this rain...no...ORDINARY rain...that eliminated their identities.  
  
Any and all trace of it.  
  
Rufus, overcome by panic, threw himself foward and was pummelled by the rain. Pain shot through his body, and the bark and snarl of the dogs burned in his ears that sharpened to hear it echo a thousand times louder and he roared in anguish, the liquid rolling off his body that transformed, that grew unmistakably feline fur, that covered every inch of his once clean-shaven form, and his knees rammed against the pavement, pressing his hands that enlargened into...paws against his face, that suddenly protruded outwards in a feline snout covered by more whiskers. A tail shot from behind that lashed uncontrollably, a moving target for the dogs. One of their jaws clamped on the tail and he roared..the roar of a beast...of a leopard or a lion.....As his jaws sprang open to punish the offending lowlife, his teeth broke through the walls of his gums and he turned on both of the dogs, sinking his teeth into their sides. They howled, quickly healed by the Black  
  
Rain but another slash of claws proved the cat's mastery, and the dogs turned tail.....for now, at least.  
  
"RRRGHRR...RGHRR..RHGHRRGH.RGHHRRRRR.." That proves who is the head of this company.  
  
The Black Rain roared in laughter.  
  
Rufus realized he was the butt of the joke. The cruel, sadistic joke.  
  
He gripped his throat with the paw, the scrape of claws drawing a sick orange blood that disappeared as the globs of rain smothered it. "RGGHRRRRRR..." That was supposed to be a WORD. But it wasn't. It didn't mean...ANYTHING. He looked down at himself, only half-hidden by the Black Rain. Still bipedal, not like those ANIMALS that had the AUDACITY to attack their president, but...he had...bitten them...he had returned the attack.  
  
With of all things, a bite.  
  
He raised a paw distractedly, in a strangling shock to run his fingers through his hair until he realized he didn't have hair and he didn't have fingers. Nothing to make a million choice gestures to express his horror, his absolute revulsion, but could only roar his hate.  
  
The roar matched the thunder and sent his fury across the city.  
  
*~*~*  
  
It had only been a matter of time before there was leakage. With the rate of production, there was bound to be an...."accident." The effects would most likely be limited, however, Kanto being an island. Perhaps global assimilation would never be realized, but they had to start somewhere, was not that right?  
  
Hojo moved inaudibly through the piling sludge born of the unreceding flood, hands clasped behind his bent back as usual, ignoring the slight pang in one or two muscles that Mako failed to penetrate. Hahaa.....of course, that did little to prove his humanity. With his blood saturated with that..other mixture, there was nothing for the Black Rain to change.  
  
As for the "lucky" ones in this venture..."Blood type O negative, was it?" he snickered, removing his glasses with his left hand and cleaning them on his labcoat, stained a deep black as the storm raged on. It was a useless effort and they returned to the bridge of his nose smudged and impossible to see clearly through. But so taken was he by this utter euphoria that the man hardly noticed that he could not see at all, blinded by toxic glee as well as the rain. "Only they are immune...how 'unfortunate' their position in the food web has so dramatically changed..... " A bolt of lightning lit the quiet malice of his tightly-drawn smile."A perplexing transition from predator to prey..." He stood on the crest of a hill that hadn't been levelled yet by the merciless onslaught of beasts, soaking in the streaming cascades as if it was like any other storm, leaning an ear to hear the bestial conversation that suddenly replaced intelligible words....."We will soon see their ability to adapt to new...rather....uncomfortable...circumstances." The quiet malice discarded its subtle cloak and he shook in a fit of pure delight, disgusting and sickening in its presence, the type of warped elation that shocks the mourners at a grave.  
  
He stroked his narrow chin with spidery fingers, all relish dissipating with the blinking monitor clutched in his other hand. A thin frown creased his lower jaw as he lowered his head and peered at the device's screen partially obscured by the black liquid. "Draconis Rex has been static for precisely thirteen hours and thirty-two minutes at these exact coordinates..it can only mean that the 'human' has regained influence..." He looked ahead with narrowed eyes into the chemical flood that cloaked Kanto in darkness. The reduced visibility may pose a problem...But..... it was nothing of importance. He would reach his destination before long. as the portal occured not too far from that location. This was quite convenient.....yes...very soon the obstreperous dragon would return to captivity.  
  
An advantageous situation without defect had it not been for the rather irritating voice of an inexperienced member of the Order.  
  
"Lovely weather, isn't it, Professor?" a man---or perhaps a mouse--he could not seem to determine its identity from the squeak it made--- asked from behind the opaque wall of tumbling rain.  
  
"Yes.....the May flowers are in bloom," he laughed, resolving to humor the other scientist. If Draconis Rex had been inactive for this long, it would be unlikely that it would emerge before he intercepted it. Its other half was substantially formidable.....for a human, anyway.  
  
Blasts of light alternated with the quake of thunder as Hojo half-turned to intercept a passing wind. " Of course, being that a high percentage of plants are autotrophic, that would be a highly inacurate statement..." A smile of disdain flashed through the light that tore above their heads."....unless I am incorrect in labelling the Kanto sample a society of predators that are dependent on those...Pokémon for mental survival. How pitiful...some even extend this predation to parasitism...how fitting for them to become carnivores."  
  
Elm's low-volume reply aimed at the Turks on his left side was lost through the thunder that warned of an impending treachery that was veiled under nervousness and anxiety.  
  
"Uh...shouldn't we t-talk about this inside? It's not safe to be out in the rain like this. We could get electrocuted!"  
  
"Safe?" the old man repeated, his mouth curving into a smirk. "If safety was your priority, you never would have applied to the Order in the first place. Now then..." Hojo leaned foward and craned his neck. What was this? Ah..... A product of the Black Rain, no doubt.. He scented animal fur amidst the chemical-heavy air. "I presume you will begin testing on that one quite soon..."  
  
The hiatus in the thunder allowed an agitated growl to slip through the din and stab through the hammering rain. It betrayed more than a shred of fear that swallowed years of restraint and rationality. A rationality that now he desperately fought the feral instincts of a creature he could never...ever...admit was himself. Feral instincts that would force him against any and all will in his very human mind to.....eat his fellow Turk, whose fists guarded his throat as if untrusting of his own leader-----  
  
That was no surprise. Rude was ready to charge.. There was no... suspicion. Rude remained unquestionably faithful for years..why should there be distrust in that soul he forever concealed behind those sunglasses that was particularly useless in Hades' storm.  
  
It was.....nothing to fret over, really. Now he wouldn't have to be haunted by the fact he walked from the grave when he was supposed to be doing his job.  
  
But for the love of Christ, his body STILL wasn't any warmer than when he died. The thick coat of coarse Sandslash fur didn't remove the chill of the corpse-cold blood that that sped through his arteries.  
  
You superior's orders are your first priority, Tseng reminded himself in his head, undexterously positioning his gun with both claws. This would take adjusting to... what he could handle so easily now took extra effort...what was done with aplomb and finesse was clumsy and awkward. But he would adjust. He always did in the end. It was his duty to adapt so he could fulfill his duty. And he would adjust to those instincts and ignore them.. the Turk could still speak half-intelligibly..he wasn't a beast. He had no reason to succumb to the commands of nature, only to the commands of man as he'd done for his entire life.  
  
Another blast of thunder punctuated the drowned air. Elm had moved closer to the elder scientist, his frivolous grin somewhat visible through the opaque sheet. He uplifted his head which he shook as a negative, still that happy light in his eyes of a pretended ignorance."Oh, no, Professor. I don't have any intention in studying Black Rain victims!"  
  
"Victims?" Hojo repeated with an arch of an eyebrow. He repositioned his spectacles pushed down his narrow nose from the force of the falling deluge, the bright glow of Mako boring through the solid wall.. "You know what you are insinuating, Elm...that the experiment is indeed a criminal activity?" He nearly laughed outright at the hilarity, raised a hand to stifle it without much success, then slipped the hand behind his back again, straightening slightly as his gaze penetrated the core of the heavens. "Why, this is for the betterment of society..." He let an arm slip from their eternal clasped position, making a subtle gesture with it while staring at the other scientist in agitation.  
  
." ...do you not see the senseless strife that could be ended by eliminating humanity? Are you---"  
  
The sermon met an abrupt demise as there was a terse signal of very changed intentions, interpreted quickly by Rude who stormed foward and caught the scientist's visible arm, wrenched it to the side, twisted it halfway and yanked it behind the man's curved back, ramming it roughly against the other wrist and securing him in a tight hold.  
  
Hojo arched both eyebrows this time, turning his head to the side in mild surprise that slowly dispersed to dry amusement. So the youth had not yet lost their childishness. "I suggest you release me," he urged with quiet deadliness in his voice. "This is hardly the time for frivolous pranks...you must get to your work, I must get to mine." Hm...apparently that did not convince him, as Rude still had Hojo's hands in an unwavering hold. The other pursed irritated lips and bowed his head slightly, rain dripping from the tangled bangs that hung in front of his forehead. "I have a subject that is extremely volatile in its more mobile form..." if you will excuse me, I am obliged to intercept it----"  
  
The other..ignored him. Hojo gave a slight cough of perturbation. For whatever reason, his own tendency towards indifference unnerved him somewhat when employed by others: Elm, of all possible reactions, started to sing...off-key, perhaps unaware he was tone deaf, but to his vexation it wasn't as much the song as it was the words.....that vexed him.  
  
".....and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again," Elm concluded in his forceless, effectless tenor that betrayed something of the thinnest malice. He now walked in front of his aged superior, the former's eyes sparking with delight at the nonsensical song that centered on, of all the miserable organisms that inhabited the globe, a spider.  
  
There was an..odd nod of approval from Elm at the nearly imperceptible stammer that followed.  
  
"I--I see you persist in carrying on this tedious joke." The song's impact crumbled and he leaned foward his eyes piercing through the thick ebony tapestry that the wind swept in a southwestern path with a roaring whistle.  
  
"But when it comes to its conclusion....."He twisted his limbs out of the grasp for the purpose of re-adjusting his glasses that had slipped off quite a ways, forgetting that Rude held them in a vice. " I suspect you will suffer." He lightly grinded his teeth in slight irascibility..However light his struggle, Rude closed the vice harder, tighter, until it nearly cut off the circulation of blood. " I am not a man who particularly enjoys games such as these..." he found himself growling the words, his normally unperturbed gaze showing a growing loss of patience. Lost patience yields anger plus irrationality. The perfect time to strike.  
  
Elm stood still, slipping one of his hands into his pockets with a seemingly genuine laugh as of one amused at his folly. "I KNOW that, Professor! Games are fun---" He forced a facetious frown. "It saddens me that you don't like games." The manic tone suddenly changed....cast off the cloak of feigned frivolity unveiling the intentions underneath. "And I knew that, too. In fact..." His voice took on that far more serious tone...a tone of lost purity that came with the influence of chemicals and the demoness that posessed them. The pocket bulged from the hand squirming inside it... whatever he was looking for, it was small. But he was in no hurry. He had plenty of time.. Unlike this one...He looked up briefly from his search and grinned with the slighest slant in his eyebrows. "I know quite a bit more about you than you think.". He advanced a step foward, his brown eyes clashing with Hojo's green ones that flinched at his simple, matter-of-fact words. "You had a sibling.."  
  
There was a pause. A long, awkward pause of uncomfortable deliberation. "I admit to having no family whatsoever."  
  
"Don't be silly, Professor," Elm scoffed in that grave tone, flat, unaccompanied by the flightiness that comes from an overextended youth. A sudden birth of maturity that frankly..unnerved him. There was a dangerous element in the spontaneous and illogical.  
  
" Everyone has to have parents-----" Elm started, sharpening the blade of his words, completely straightfaced, no shock or abhorrence, telling it as the simple, gruesome fact it was, until he thrust a spear into Hojo's long-buried conscience. . "--even sadistic bastards who killed their own brother."  
  
"That is none of your concern..." Hojo answered rather briskly, the pool of rage that Cid had the misfortune to earlier incite charging to the surface again, opening the wide chasm where no reason existed and only emotion and passion reigned. Where even someone like the old man was prone to human folly. There he could expose this, to release it because therein lay the chained weakness.  
  
"Your brother liked games before you killed him, didn't he?" asked Elm? He began that walk again. Youths...children...could never stay in one place. Always had to be moving, to expend that extra energy.....so aggravating.....  
  
But the mention of...of HIM... Not merely irritation, but source of anger, of hatred, of isolated suffering he locked inside his soul and that when released, were the bane of his victims..  
  
"Poker, Blackjack, Craps.." He returned him to the mental dungeons of his childhood. They were all erased..he had erased them...why was this presumptuous juvenille sketching it again, forming the accursed blueprint of his past...? "...using the Mus as footballs that he would only kick when he knew you were watching..." He tore it down..he took his knowledge and with it, destroyed him..."...and seeing how high the temperature would have to be until your pet mouse burned up..."  
  
He...he who tormented him.. was DESTROYED. So what was past. He no longer pondered the consequences, as they unravelled of their own accord and were inconsequential in the end.  
  
Elm sensed him buckling, cracking underneath though the old man seemed unaffected. He saw but a fragment of questioning in those green eyes...maybe wondering why he persisted, what was the purpose?  
  
Whether it lacked a purpose or not didn't matter to Elm. Once absorbed, he could not be extracted from his work.  
  
"He played games all his life, I read. I read a lot of those journals in the Nibelheim library. Interesting reading. One of those games he really shouldn't have played...it was with your wife, wasn't it?"  
  
"He...he was mine...he was SUPPOSED to be.....mine..." Hojo found himself unknowingly admitting, leashing the rage but losing grip on it, his hold slipping on the restraint that bound a caged anger that never could be truly locked away proved by this current abuse.....of the creatures with their pillaged humanity. Yes, lust for knowledge, and the more distant goal of worldwide assimilation, but perhaps a potent hatred for the world..the roots of which gradually were unearthed.  
  
. Inwardly he seethed, though logic reminded him that this had all been avenged more than three decades ago.....with that blade of justice...and that there was no longer any reason to harbor resentment.  
  
If not for that other_sin.  
  
Elm now was a nose away from Hojo's face. His arm wasn't moving anymore. It sat stationary in his pocket, fingers wrapped around something unseen and something hidden by the Black Rain that swirled in puddles around them.  
  
"But the game he loved most.....that was making 'Eddie' scared of the ...." Elm brought the spider between his fingers, crushed by the falling rain. "...Itsy bitsy spider."  
  
It didn't matter if the thing was dead. Elm dangled the arachnid in front of his eyes, pushing it towards his face with malicious glee. "What's the matter, Professor? Why are you so afraid of THIS little animal?"  
  
"G.....get...that...despicable...a..animal a..way..." Hojo warned, putting more effort in his struggle, craning his neck behind him as if terrified by the very SIGHT of it, at which, of course, Elm shoved it directly in front of his face.  
  
"How can you fear something so useful? As Professor Oak once said, our ecosystem would suffer without spiders to......" He left it on the bridge of the man's nose and edged backwards, leaving him to.....whimper and struggle all the more. Elm's hands once again delved into his pocket, elated grin spreading across his visage made terrible by the lightning flash. "...to catch the unneeded insects-----" He glared directly at Hojo. "--which they do with such genius----" He revealed the mesh of steel wire and unravelled it, the ends meeting the earth with menacing finality. "---by ensnaring them in a web---" With a devilish grin he flung the net onto the other scientist, which Rude released only to secure the tangle of steel wiring tautly around the captive whose pathetic efforts at struggle were smothered as he was hopelessly entangled in the trap. "And they never see it coming until it's too late to avoid it," the younger man finished with victory flooding his grin.  
  
And Hojo didn't even notice..that one of the Order had captured him as if he was simply an experiment or that the Turks, one of them that could so easily be made a subject, dragged him through the piling mud that poured through the holes in the net and caked his body that slowly stopped flirting with futility and let himself be hauled towards a portal to Gaia....even that failed to register in his brain.  
  
That too had utterly failed him for perhaps the first time in his life. And why?  
  
Because of the dead spider that still clutched to his face, one of its legs dangling in front of his eyes that wouldn't close to spite him, to haunt him with the sordid past.  
  
His future looked that way as well.  
  
*~*~*  
  
It looks like Hojo's finally going to get it. ^^;;;;; Stay tuned for chapter 21 and gruesome stuff. oO Don't worry, Erin, Cid will be in chapter 22, I promise. ^_^ 


	21. The Nightmare's Beginning

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Hey! ^^ No scene changes in this. You have been warned. Also, the title, as you might guess, is the title of (guess who?)'s theme, so it's not mine. ^^;  
  
*~*~*  
  
"I'm getting less human."  
  
~Vincent Valentine, FFVII  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 21: The Nightmare's Beginning  
  
*~*~*  
  
This was the experimental animal?  
  
Sebastian frankly could not imagine a more disgusting proposition.  
  
"Professor Elm, you honestly can't be serious." The older man raised his thin, piercing eyes at the youth, whose immunity to such debilitating gazes was crudely apparent as he cued Rude to disentangle the net and dump his captive on the fractured floor. Sebastian lifted a thread-thin eyebrow as he inspected who the other so rudely manhandled. He scanned the static body briefly. Though the man was semi-prostate, at the very least his profession could be identified, which psychologically worsened an already worrisome offense.  
  
"This is a scientist..you simply CAN'T be----"  
  
"Oh, but I AM," Elm answered with a diabolical grin. One of the shadows shifted as if unnerved. A warped change that Rude wouldn't be more shocked if the scientist actually had changed into a Pokémon, an animal before his very eyes...like his leader..that was supposed to be dead in the first place.  
  
Why? This maniac was nothing..NOTHING like the timid man Rufus had conferred with. Surely the president was decieved at this one's credibility. Wasn't he wondering why Hojo hadn't returned yet? Because some Goldenrod University student ten or some odd years graduated had taken something personal and planned on..he honestly had no idea. But he wasn't supposed to be in on this, right? He was only a Turk, after all.  
  
Tseng watched apathetically. Empathy was forbidden in the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research branch anyway. The very emotion, which was involuntary, much less action.  
  
He could take action..prevent a disaster from happening. It would be no strain to take the gun and fire a round in the delinquent's stomach. But..he couldn't do that, could he? This was the President's orders..and though the president was incapable and immature by virtue of his few years, the Turk bore it and smothered his personal feelings under a professional facade.  
  
Tseng reached for his gun..Forget orders. This man was a threat. But so was Hojo. The Turks had relayed to him the reports of isolated bloodbaths after Sephiroth killed him, concluding with the death of Sephiroth himself after a bold campaign led by the terrorists. Preceding that, Hojo apparently did not care if he blew Midgar to hell. No guarantee he wouldn't try it again if he escaped his cohorts who were equally dangerous.  
  
So whatever was about to happen....let it happen. It wasn't his arena.  
  
The man rose from the floor with a whimper uncomfortably clear through the relative silence that pervaded the musty room. With one hand he searched for something, prodding at and rubbing with listless vigor at his face. Sebastian looked him over again now that he had a clear view....as clear as the insufficient lighting would allow the room to be, anyways. He appeared to be in his late fifties, judging from the receding hairline and spinal curvature that he himself had been spared in his fading prime.  
  
Strangely the newcomer had no wrinkles to denote age. It was impossible to discern anything else in great detail, the face so thick with mud and other filth.  
  
Filth like the squashed juices of the spider innards that Hojo spilled in the failed effort to get the DAMNED creature off his skin that perspired with the very effort........  
  
Elm rubbed his hands in elated anticipation and pointed at the Turks commandingly. "Guard that door," he ordered briskly with an ill-fitting grin, walking sharply away from Rude and the excuse for a Sandslash and fixed hungry eyes on his would-be victim plagued with the tiny arachnid. Not so invulnerable now, are you? He stifled a full-blown guffaw without much success and inquired with blatant sadism in a thirsty leer, "Our generous volunteer looks chipper, don't you think?"  
  
With that last, desperate attempt the old man managed to scrape off the crushed spider, respiring with a choked difficulty as one eye fumed in anger and the other twitched in terror. He buried them in the other scientist, wiping some of the accumulated grime from a side of his face as he growled,  
  
"I see you do not plan to live much longer.....it is a shame," he hissed with venomous sarcasm, "--considering the offending brain is one of exceptional genius..."  
  
"Oh, you flatter me, Professor." He motioned to the onlooking scientist, still tight-lipped in firm and evident disapproval. "Strap him down."  
  
With the accursed arachnid and its clingy remains off his face, the lethal magma of contempt receded back beneath the crust. The flare of green faded to an insistent glow of calmness.  
  
Sebastian stood adamant, confident in his seniority and more so in his convictions. But be that as it may, brash threats were stronger a hundred fold, and the sight of the rusted instruments that exuded the obvious threat of pain on the tray was stronger a thousand."I can make this as painful for you as it's going to be for him." The other scientist removed one of the instruments from the tray and brandished it like a knife aimed straight at the other's throat that whitened with dismay. "That what you want?"  
  
The older man found himself wavering..of all commands, under one with far less experience. It gnawed at his ego, but as it was not a pride rashly and hastily restored, preservation and survival to him mattered above all else. He was of the kind who are cautious and guarded, willing to trade pride for security. Willing to trade pride for a so-called fellow human.  
  
Which did not bode well for the_other scientist. Sebastian masked his reluctance and dutifully took the hunched-over man by the shoulders that felt unusually cold despite the presence of a labcoat, and pushed him towards the table washed in rust and blood. The feeble drip of Black Rain from the scientist's drenched clothes and tangled hair mingled with lives wasted on the stained pieces of floor.  
  
"You are certain you will not reconsider?" the old man inquired with a grin of exposed malice that coated the Rocket scientist's nerves in icy suspicion, perhaps a drop of fear. With no evident change of expression, he hardened his nerves against his already loose code of ethics. Hojo swerved his penetrating gaze on the other scientist, now smiling through a partial mask of soaked earth. "No? Then carry on..."  
  
Executioners went to Judgement shackled with guilt.  
  
Hojo didn't, his indifferent conscience as free as a wild vulture. Crime? What crime? It was a favor to humankind...a service to the world. But no, they didn't see the benefit, did they? They saw it fit to punish him..and punishment had to be their sole intent. Why else would they bring him to this specific laboratory.....a parody of his vengeance, his justice. What great irony there was in this state of affairs. Haunting in its hilarity.  
  
"The wolves devour one of their own pack...." Hojo muttered distantly, unconcerned at what lay ahead. The table..Anger and terror that had so recently consumed him fled with the spider.  
  
He would let them re-enact the so-called "tragedy." Let them disappoint themselves.  
  
Sebastian quirked a vexed eyebrow. One would think the.subject..would be terrified: he would flail and protest like any other human would.The unnatural placidity was..irritating, at best. "It is undoubtedly expected from a criminal, but as for the other one..... I suppose the most benevolent wolf likewise dons the sheepskin.." Sebastian eyed him uncomfortably and cleared his throat for no other reason than to relieve the anxiety building in his nerves. Quite the eccentric one...he mused as he laid the hunched man across the table and took hold of the straps he had mended earlier in preparation for the animal. Animal..this is not an animal, he snorted as he pulled the straps tightly over the older scientist. Sebastian found himself flinching at that warped grin of happiness. A rational human being. A man not far away from whatever torture the younger scientist had fashioned. Sebastian paused halfway in securing the legs. Am I mistaken? Perhaps because he reacted so calmly..maybe that was suffcient to classify him as non-human. Any normal man would fight the death to evade this...this brutality. Surely one who found something lighthearted in it surely had made a pact with the feral.  
  
But...speech, he had that...reason..he had that as well. So, he must be human. No matter if he was green, that could well be a disease that certainly did not deny humanity, for the only disease that did was bestiality itself.  
  
Though Sebastian was reluctant, Elm was ecstatic.  
  
A sadist desired the natural human response to the threat of suffering, but... the other knew the nature of the Gaian chemical. He knew he wouldn't see an ordinary reaction from an unnatural being. Especially with the spider gone, the fear was forgotten, replaced by condescension and a slight air of superiority, coupled with manipulation that the green slug used to infuse guilt into his cohort who was hesitant about the implications of the procedure ENOUGH. The last thing Sebastian needed was guilt in his conscience that hadn't yet disintegrated amongst his own ambitions of unethical discovery within the Team Rocket ranks..  
  
Elm held the scalpel and turned it over in his hands, letting its rusted metal shine dim light off his broad lenses.  
  
My little friend...you're going to help me get even, aren't you? He caressed the blunt edge with his hand and beamed with undisguised malice. Let him accuse and berate. The sweet song of human shrieks would be ample payback for much more than Hojo's attempt to foil the experiment.  
  
The aforesaid stared into the burnt-out bulb in the lamp that swung creakily overhead, casting a shadow that paced with heightening impatience. The last strap sealed off any hope of escape. But as it was, that was his lowest priority. What need had he to escape? What did this fledgling know of breeding the agony that destroyed the most stalwart of souls and stripped them of all identity? Not even their fathers recognize them...if they ever encounter them....heh...heh..... He twisted his neck in a random direction and smirked in an unshakable confidence. "You know very well that those who thrive on poison cannot be poisoned....do you actually think that you can make ME suffer?" he asked the other scientist scornfully. "You are welcome to perform any procedure...I doubt you will garner much satisfaction from it."  
  
Elm snickered to himself as he cleaned the instruments with his back facing the other. Look at that..that subtle arrogance...so self-assured, so confident that the Mako and Jenova mixture in his blood would protect him. Heh...old men were so close-minded. He absently twirled the scalpel between his fingers, laughing as he walked towards Hojo and leaned his face uncomortably close to his.  
  
"You sadly underestimate me, Professor. I learned from the best.....you and Professor Demoni." He closed his eyes fondly at the thought of his revered superior and he heaved a saddened sigh...."Sadly he's no longer the head of the Order." His eyes opened with enraged gleam that dripped from his irises. "Now YOU'RE at the top. Isn't that TOO convenient a coincidence, Professor??" Elm queried. He shifted and sat on the table, lifting Hojo's chin with one hand to ensure an unfragmented attention. His other hand made frenzied gestures as the fervor swelled in voice that had totally lost its mildness. "I read the papers. Jouto's top lawyers mysteriously disappeared. That was when they convicted Professor Sebastian here, which your ever-reliable Shin-Ra did NOTHING about," he accused, letting the narrow jaw drop to its incredulous owner's chest and slipping off the table, circled accusingly around the other scientist. "Professor Demoni couldn't stand the thought of losing a top researcher, so he planned a jailbreak and was caught by SHIN-RA guards, and for all his millions got a public defender because none of the lawyers were AROUND to defend him."  
  
Hojo's eyes narrowed contemptuously up at the restless figure.  
  
"You.....are insinuating that....."  
  
Elm leaned over in a burst of sudden vigor and gripped Hojo's soaked shirt collar so hard his knuckles turned stark white.  
  
"I sure am, Professor Hojo. How else did Black Rain production skyrocket, huh? More to produce and less to oppose. You wanted to get rid of Professor Demoni because he got soft and threatened your precious Gemini Project and the so-called progression of science. Now maybe you were just following your president's orders. Or MAYBE you wanted his position." He pulled the man up against the straps, tightening the pressure on his chest that added a pale violet to green.  
  
"That is the most ridiculous accusation....." Hojo answered, unaffected by the loss of oxygen. Elm let Hojo's head smack against the hard table and backed away. That's right..no pain.  
  
How about for the mind? Or the conscience?  
  
"I don't think...what's his name..Gast---thinks so."  
  
Oh, that's right.....  
  
"You are implying that history would repeat itself...That is not so.. .I have only killed my predecessor, not my mentor."  
  
This animal didn't have one. He had never known the meaning of the word, "regret".  
  
"Runing his life is just as bad as killing him, Hojo. Celadon University's finest professor, Pallet's teacher is gone, and no one will run his lab. What's going to happen to all the Pokémon? All because your timely plotting landed him in prison. Now he's ruined."  
  
He sharpened the scalpel on the grinding stone of vengeance. Hojo closed his eyes and gave a yawn of boredom. He opened them again, mildly irriitated. Draconis Rex was probably gone and this toddler barely weaned had a mind to accuse him of something so preposterous and untrue while spouting this righteous nonsense like those evangelical maniacs that occasionally stirred resentment against his department.  
  
Hah....but they were of some use eventually... Black Rain production raised forty percent.  
  
"I did not contrive whatever plot you are accusing me of instigating..." Hojo stated, quite agitated. An itch that he couldn't scratch decided to develop. The mud started to loosen and roll into his mouth. The air was oppressive and moist..wonderful news for him drenched to the bone in Black Rain. He leaned his head foward as far as the straps allowed and growled again,  
  
"You are wasting time...both mine and yours... Samuel's ambitions after he allowed Gemini and Dittwo to escape are questionable, but he landed himself into legal ruin by his own error."  
  
The shadow of the blade fell across his body. Hojo stared into eyes mad with vengeance, very much like his on that day..  
  
"You know what? It doesn't matter." He hurled it down and cut through the labcoat sleeve and the shirt underneath it from shoulder to wrist, a loud rip flooding the room. The blade sat now sat on naked flesh and Elm's grin molded his face in a latent deadliness as he stated with mock pleasantness, "Because I'm going to ruin you."  
  
The point of the blade sank through the outer layers of skin to the inner, breaking through blood vessels that spurted liquid Mako as the scalpel chipped the bone. He left it embedded there, smirking at Sebastian and commanding with sickening glee, "Observe."  
  
Hojo plastered a grin on his thin face and kept it there, a haunting expression on a body unable to feel any sort of physical injury. Callous to pain, absolutely unaffected.  
  
"See, Professor?  
  
No pain. Look at him, smiling like that.." the younger man sneered in warranted ecstasy. This was the intended effect after all. "It's because the....." He pulled out the blade and cut through the already-torn sleeve, a good portion of the pallid green skin visible as Jenova's cells did its work and repaired the flesh quicker than any blood could clot, leaving the skin seamless and leaving no sign that any wound had ever been inflicted at all.  
  
"I...don't believe it.." Sebastian gaped in pure shock..an emotion he had never felt in his long career, too accustomed to his work. Not unlike the old man, there were no surprises..his life was blasé. No new discoveries to be made, only improvements and modifications on the older ones....but THIS.... "Regeneration.." he stated while he approached the glowing liquid and simply stared. ".....that's not posisble in humans without leaving a scar...nor an internal wound that large can heal in that short amount of time...!"  
  
"Exactly. And as long as he has this mixture in him, death is impossible. Imagine that, huh?" Elm grinned as he held the blade, now filmed in luminous Mako and Jenova cells that coated the edge, over the old man's arm. "But for my purposes, more importantly, it numbs pain. See?" He this time raised his arm and stabbed with full force, tearing the length of the upper arm. No cry, no complaint, not even a movement. Hojo was still drunk in a perturbing serenity. Sebastian looked on with the kind of shock that fills the bored mind with inquiry and returns it to infantility. He let himself be absorbed for a minute space of the moment, losing a bit of his cynicism in this perplexing property.  
  
"This could be a significant breakthrough in the use of weaponry," Sebastian stated. "If a Pokémon was created to withstand this Mako, it would be unstoppable. Giovanni would be quite pleased," he added, nodding with appraisal.  
  
Ah, yes, he would...Hojo thought, not bothering to veil the gleeful grin that only broadened. I must analyze the feasibility of infusion on Zero-X and Gemini...It dissolved into a tightened frown. He distastefully fixated his narrowed gaze at the younger man. As soon as this experiment is finished.  
  
Elm seemed to forget Hojo was there, his focus glued on the experiment. Within seconds the wounds healed, leaving the skin unscarred. But he had wowed Sebastian enough. Now it was time to begin.  
  
"The only catch is the behavior of the mixture. Watch: it can't heal multiple fractures in the skin." He dug the blade into the wound that had healed only moments ago and wrenched it from shoulder to hand, cutting a deep gorge from which the Jenova cells grew new skin cells to replace the rent ones. But this time he didn't wait for it to heal. Without ceremony he plunged the scalpel into Hojo's other arm, tearing a hole in his labcoat with a sharp rip of fabric and then a sharp rip of flesh through the lower arm.  
  
The Jenova cells repaired both wounds in a full minute. No surprise that Hojo didn't even feel it. "You will have to do much better than that," he taunted with a supressed laugh. "I knew Samuel long before you.....being briefly acquainted with him however, you should at least be a novice..but no, you are quite the beginner."  
  
Elm refrained from any reply, too engaged in his work to even hear him. He systematically, methodically, cut through the skin, watching as the regeneration lessened..The wounds closed with more difficulty, with more strain on the Jenova cells.....straining to multiply at unimaginable, impossible rates... Slowing until..  
  
Until the wounds didn't close at all.  
  
"See that, Professor Sebastian?" Elm pointed with the scalpel at the gaping tears coughing a drop of Mako. "Once regeneration stops, the mixture drains freely." He raised the instrument again, this time above Hojo's chest. "But I don't want to be here forever. We still have phase two ahead of us." He rested the point against the old man's heart. "You want pain, Professor? Here it is." He forced the blade through and made a jagged incision, sticking the scalpel underneath the thin layer and pushing against the chest wall, growing elated at the ample bubble of Mako that formed in the crack as the younger man hacked his way deeper and deeper into that body supposedly impervious to pain. Yeah...we will soon see about that.  
  
So distracted was the aged scientist in this unwavering surety that it wasn't until Elm gouged a wide square in his torso, carved it with careless jerks that opened his sides as well as his chest, taking pins in his other hand as if he was only another cadaver to be taken out of the freezer and dissected and piercing the walls of the flaps of skin to the table as the luminous Mako was finally freed and now dripped...in small droplets slowly crawling from and across the vital organs through the glowing ribcage onto the table.....it wasn't until his body started to hurt from the Mako loss and he peered into his insides, at his heart, lungs, that gradually stopped glowing, that slowly became lifeless corpses in themselves, that he realized fully what the younger scientist was doing to him. It fell upon him in dreary gloom that carried the barest hint of fear. Without the chemicals....... he'd be...dead......dead...that was it.....ah-ha..  
  
While the Mako leaked out of his body that shuddered as its source of life wormed out of its grasp and deprived it of any strength, he could do little than offer a grin that violently contorted with the loss of his lifeblood.  
  
"An unwise choice you have made...utterly expected from a juvenille...you will end up kiling your precious specimen before he has a chance to feel pain....." Hojo leaned the back of his head against the iron table and laughed outright, his eyes glazed with a haze of something not so right in the head.....and a creeping awareness of the absolute weakness that readied to vanquish him as the Mako dripped out of his body, collecting in a bubbling pool of green that drowned him in euphoria.  
  
A euphoria that slowly receded as it leaked more, as it drained the artificial power from emaciated muscles, that made him look up at his hands shrivelled by age...Jenova's cells hid it except for the bend in his back...now his true age showed...the natural deformities that develop with so many long years...though more pronounced in others who let their health deteriorate.And indeed..he had never really taken care of himself properly, whether it be nutriton, hygiene, or the like. The scores of years returned to punish him.  
  
Hojo looked at himself with eyes that blurred in and out of clarity. From what he could identify... Regained wrinkles on skin that draped loosely over thin bones attacked by its many diseases that left it sapped of near all use...along with the myriad of scars and holes in his body from that struggle at the Mako Cannon, cutting deep through crude and rushed stitches...  
  
The stitches. Hojo lifted a thin, wiry limb, now wracked by the deformities of age and the scathing reminder of what he was...merely a reanimated cadaver for experimental testing. Ha...he...Professor Hojo...was the result of an experiment. He would laugh if it didn't strain lungs on the verge of failure. Yes, he knew that...it caused him the slightest bit of discomfort. That was the thing. Discomfort, nothing else. "Where is this pain you speak of, Professor?" he coughed, easing down his hand shuddering with weakness. Perhaps he should congratulate Elm for making him age thirty years..forty at the most. But he still failed at torture. All the better for him. "Hm? Where is it...?"  
  
"Here," Elm answered, replacing the scalpel with a syringe and plunging it into a vein as he would a knife, setting Hojo's teeth on edge. The piercing needle sank further, his finger on the tab, forcing vermillion liquid into his body that twisted in response to this new..fluid that he hadn't seen in what seemed to be an eternity. At first glance anyway without testing its composition...normal blood..  
  
Elm's eyes broadened as the red fluid started to drip with the alien liquid in a lurid swirl of blood and Mako. With a noticeable grimace he held the syringe with one hand and reached for his thread and needle on the tray, shoivng the other instruments aside with a lot less regard as his ambition fueled the carelessness and impatience that was a scientist's adversary. Some of the instruments clattered on the floor as he grabbed the thread and needle and left the syringe stuck in Hojo's skin as he shifted towards the chest. "Professor Sebastian, take over," he ordered, throwing his head towards in the direction of the emptied tube projecting painfully out of the epidermis. "We're getting rid of the Mako, not the blood."  
  
Sebastian found himself obeying, refilling the contents of the syringe when it was emptied and injecting the blood into the human's body. Crude, yes, unconventional, yes, tedious, dangeorus, yes, but the entire crude experiment was carried out with crude instruments and crude recordings and crude methods...not even anesthetics. Not even a proper method of blood transfusion. The instruments were contaminated. The subject was contaminated. This lab was contaminated. For all he knew his brain was contaminated by now from participating in this atrocity.  
  
But it was either that or risk death....  
  
He only partially concentrated on his task, one and a half eyes rooted to Elm hummed a rather morbid children's song that ended in "We all fall down," as he cheerfully removed the pins from Hojo's body, leaving pinpricks of blood that dripped back into his innards as he closed the flaps of skin as he would slam a door, making the victm wince as his own flesh rubbed against his ribcage and sent pain coursing through his entire chest cavity that rose with difficulty, halting in a choked inhale as Elm pushed the needle into the skin, bringing the sharpened piece of metal in and out, in and out, the teeth grinding harder against each other each time. Now the pain freely and wholly burned into him..the Mako gone, his shield gone, it left a vulnerable husk that squirmed, writhed, groaned, but killed any scream.  
  
Elm grinned, weaving the needle dangerously close to the heart that clamored for the chemical and beat with weakened fury underneath the skin. "You look like you're enjoying this, Professor. Too bad you won't be able to express your gratitude."  
  
Hojo could only manage a contemptuous glare that wavered under the unrelenting torture..he didn't think that Elm would be bold enough to ACTUALLY do it..to extract the Mako..to demand his assistant replace it with useless crimson blood of humanity...but he HAD...and now the glee-ridden scientist held the scalpel again, this time over his victim's sickly head. Hojo braced himself, knowing full well that this would hurt..no Mako to numb his nerves now..no escape from the hot burst of pain that gushed through the wound that trickled a drop of blood that released an infinity of agony.  
  
What ate at him, burned at him the most was that he had evaded this agony that ambition trained him to impose on others.For nearly his whole life...The palpable anguish at the Mako Cannon where Valentine spent all of those ancient bullets directly into his heart darkened in hate....it returned to his memory in vague, ill-fitting pieces, exuding the sensation of pain.....  
  
He felt a moistening in his hardened eyes as the blade stopped at the thick bone of the skull, and his torturer withrew the scalpel and exchanged it for another machine..what was it? He couldn't quite see it..this eye was blurring with wetness...that he refused to show. Hojo did not scream, nor did he cry. Ever.  
  
What right or reason had he to, anyway? He really had asked for it. All that mocking, that belittling, the drops of blood rolling down his forehead and into his mouth were almost deserved. Almost...had this been actual science and not simply an abuse of it.  
  
Heh...he tasted the blood. The taste of iron, but just as well if it was nickel...Nicodemus...the devil's element.  
  
This was the devil indeed, drilling a hole through the exposed skull with sick fervor, chipping away the bone that protected the brain, capable of immensities that not itself could even fathom, but delicate, frail, and vital for life.  
  
"Professor Elm, if I may remark..." Sebastian observed over the whir of the drill that poured smoke from the dent in the bloodied head. Elm stopped drilling momentarily, patting the skull with one hand in false concern for the man cringing underneath the machine. "Your subject is right. You may kill him before the experiment is finished." He grabbed at the silence as his opportunity. He had had quite enough of this insult. "Besides," He moved his hand with a placating gesture. "Wouldn't you be more interested in experimental Pokémon? This is quite dangerous. If a Pokémon dies, it is not nearly as much as a loss as a---"  
  
Elm stopped Sebastian's rather monotone voice with a finger on the other's lips. He leered at the Rocket scientist for a while before turning back to his target. So far, only a dent. It would be easier if he did as the Romans did and cracked the skull with an Ag hammer. On the other hand, he didn't wish to spend a year or so of his life rebuilding the animal's brain that would surely be shredded with the pieces of bone tearing into the grey matter. His lips pursed in an upset frown. They hadn't even GOTTEN to phase 2, thanks to Sebastian's whining and Hojo's smart remarks.  
  
But if this shut the both of them up, he'd do it.  
  
He turned on the drill, its high whimper raising the volume of his voice in aggravated proportion.  
  
."Professor, you're hard to convince. You and your humanistic values. 'We can't experiment on humans. It's too dangerous,'" Elm imitated Sebastian's somewhat nasal voice with a mocking grin. The drill spun faster and the subject tried to grab his head with the blast of pain crushing his skull only to find they didn't reach that far and he was too.physically weak to even try. Clamping his teeth on his tongue, he let his hands drop and endured it until he stopped the cursed machine. "Damn the danger, Professor. If he dies, we can revive him again. It's that simple."  
  
He started it again.  
  
The drill cut away a huge slab of bone that clattered on the table and this time sent Hojo's teeth ram into his sewn lips in silent agony, drawing blood that trickled down his chin onto his neck.that likewixe had been sewn....it really only occured to him now that those stitches were hidden all those years. Remove them and he'd fall apart in pieces of flesh and bone..literally crumble. He found himself exhaling uneven, erratic breaths from this haunting collection of thoughts as he heard the whine of the drill in his ears, and the youth's despicable voice that flaunted its arrogance.  
  
"I should thank you for your ONE important contribution to science, Professor. On this Earth your famed reanimation procedure is science fiction, the topics of books and its hundred film adaptions. Thanks to you, it's not just fiction anymore--"  
  
Though his brain hurt like..hell, to put it bluntly, he could still think.  
  
Oh...call him a minor player in the world of technology, did he?  
  
Pride overshadowed pain and reduced it for a scant moment as Hojo's black eyes flared a spark of heated resentment. Intimidation swelled and though it was he strapped to the table, getting his skull drilled into by a scientist as mad as him, he had not changed. He was still, after all was said and done, Professor Hojo.  
  
He could detect a faint twitch in one of Elm's sinews as he let his slanted gaze stab into his juvenille soul. "Do you have the faintest idea of how many lives I have ruined through science? Through advancements and improvements in technology, there are many who will never be the same...and you say that is of little importance...have you any idea....?"  
  
"'Yes. It was a crime against humanity," Elm answered without any change of expression. Whether he was intimidated by the old man or he did it intentionally, Elm's hand slipped and the drill marked a bloody streak on his forehead. This time he couldn't supress it any longer and screamed his heart out, clutching the sides of the table that did little to alleviate the pain of the drill hacking into his skull. "Oops...sorry," Elm apologized with the utmost insincerity, withdrew the drill and set it back on the skull again, using his other hand to keep his subject from writhing...and he was writhing quite a bit..the youth caught the elder unawares....of course, enjoying it fully.  
  
He finished the drilling and layed the awful tool back on the tray, grinning satisfactorily. He walked back towards the man, taking him by the red-splotched chin in some show of power and lifting it upwards, then letting it drop down, sagging eyes wide with painful shock as blood dripped down the bridge of his nose." But lucky you, they'll never find out who put them through all that torture." He walked towards Sebastian, returning his frown for an assertive smirk before turning back to the subject and giving him a sincerely fake smile.. "Consider it a favor, Professor. Don't worry, you don't need to pay me back." He issued a terse order to his elder. "Wire him up."  
  
If Sebastian wasn't mistaken, Elm referred to the machine that the Turks had hauled in when they first arrived. He had assembled it himself without knowing its purpose, to contribute to this torture. He would not be used. That was the final straw.  
  
"If you're not already aware, Professor Elm," Sebastian informed with an equally terse reply,"this machine acts like a galvanic cell..." He grasped one of the wires between his fingers and waved a sharp hook at him in demonstration. "It produces electric current..I will not willingly electrocute a human," he stated, steadfast in his refusal.  
  
"Then you'll do it UNwillingly," Elm snapped, striding in front of the other scientist's face, power nesting in the other's gaze. "I told you to leave your anthropocentrism at home, Professor Sebastian. But if you won't take my advice, I'll prove to you how easily anyone can be revived," the youth warned threateningly, roughly taking the pieces of skull that he'd cut away.  
  
"Humans should not be subjected to such torture---"  
  
That was it.  
  
"T-011, kill him.  
  
He guessed that would be him. Tseng let an embarassed growl brew in his throat but raised his weapon, bound by orders. Several tries to steady it, but by the time Tseng had it aimed on the target, Sebastian threw up his hands and faced the machine hurriedly. The nerve...of...that...  
  
The Rocket scientist was visibly unwilling as he attatched the wire to the target's brain. Of all upstarts to take advantage of him, a boy as far as he was concerned. But he could not lift a finger against him...oh, no...then he would be killed. So much power if one had a minion. Yes..he used to have muscle..Tyson and Bashou and Buson... Then he was the head of that research..his famed crystal...and like he questioned Elm now, the PPL questioned him....hm.  
  
People didn't really become self-aware until they see the same fault in others.  
  
The older scientist disgustedly turned various dials and entered instructions into the machine. He made a noise of distaste. This was crude, too. He could only hope that the machine would output a small spark of a sick Pikachu and not the hundreds and thousands of volts of Raikou. He could only hope that it was built as accurately as it was designed.  
  
"Go."  
  
Sebastian pulled the switch, a faint spark shooting through the wire and shocking the core of the old man's cerebrum. Elm watched, gave his signal, and strode towards the subject who strangely... didn't react any differently. This time, there was no sign of pain. Sebastian stared with quirked eyebrow. There should have been a reaction by now, but...all the subject was doing was laughing and ranting. Even as Elm roughly estimated where the slabs of skull fit and fitted them in an unsightly mess and re-sewed the patch of skin and hair onto re-formed skull, the victim was absorbed in his victory.  
  
"Ha...ha.....ha...Your negligible attempts are without the intended result," Hojo smirked through the mask of mud and blood that crawled down the stitches that ran along his body. "You are just as much a failure as that Sephiroth clone...what was his name? It does not matter...Names do not matter...tell me, what is your name?" he asked Tseng while he faced towards the ceiling. "Do you remember? What is his name? Do I remember? I do not." The content smile faded somewhat. A crease from the frown added itself to the multitude as the ceiling grew unfamiliar in his mind. "Nor do I remember why I'm here." He blnked his black eyes."An experiment, yes? A test?"  
  
The electricity penetrated that feeble portion that commanded speech, thought, the very ability to be bi-pedal...the crucial portion that could never be fully, permanently reconstructed, prone to breaking and mentally crippling its posessor.  
  
Its delayed effects overcame what retarded it and began to manifest themselves as the specimen continued to rant.  
  
"Why am I the subject? The guinea pig? Is my intellect inferior to yours? HA...HA..HAHA...." Hojo began to laugh out loud, his eyes rolling towards the back of his head as he immersed himself in crazed happiness. "My brain can ward.....ward....." Then it collapsed.  
  
The brain that failed him now betrayed him. The spark obliterated the repaired remnant and made it worthless to the standards of man. "..Something... is...horribly.." Hojo felt something leak out of his brain like the blood leaked down his face. Intelligence, its capacity to become intelligent, reversed and headed forever backwards. "...wrong..where is..intellect..brain...brain...my brain..." His eyes snapped open in damning revelation. Down through the chain of neural development until it joined with the very sublevel of brain activity. "Where is it.....?" He " Intellect..?" lost "Thinking..?" his Smarts?..? Smarts...gone...gone..GONE." mind  
  
In the most literal sense of a word that now meant nothing to him.  
  
A panic surged through every worn cell of his body, and he struggled, futilely, in bodily weaknes now joined with the weakness of mind. Not only weakness...the NON-EXISTENCE of mind. Brainless...totally, utterly, brainless. That single spark of electricity shorted out a lifetime of development..how?! Why?! Cries that became screams, made of no language, no speech, no words, but more importantly, NO THOUGHT.  
  
Hojo writhed and flailed against the straps, not knowing why he was here, for what purpose..He wanted to escape. Why were they keeping him here?! He was mad with fear...fear of everything, fear of the---what was that? It was above him. What was above? What was that word? What did it mean? What was a word?!!  
  
The growling became snarling, the snarling became screaming, invading the dark corners of the room and the dark corners of his shattered brain. Desperation engulfed him. He gnawed on the straps, soaked with other's blood, Vincent's, Draconis Rex's, now his own, the Mako that still bubbled under him, that made him cold and fearful and terrified and madly desperate to flee.  
  
Somewhere in his struggle, his glasses fell off and shattered on the floor. A monster had no use for such sophisticated devices, anyway.  
  
"That enough proof for you, Professor?" Elm asked, fitting another syringe with a needle. He walked past the wordless, speechless scientist, who could only stare at the.....animal. An animal he had dared to call a human. This rebuked any chance of it..that that was a human being...there was no way. All it took was one spark of electricity, and this creature's brain was gone. He did not know exactly why.. or how....but that it happened... That was sufficient proof for him. He found himself nodding in complete agreement. There was clearly no room for dispute.  
  
It seemed as if the two scientists had come to an understanding.  
  
Inhuman screams flew through the room in waves of total fear that bounced off the walls and flooded its source in terrifed anguish.  
  
Elm rolled the syringe between his fingers. As much as he liked to hear the little wretch shriek, his ears rang after a while from the unsavory cacophony. The needle would silence him.  
  
As he motioned for Sebastian to aid with steading the thrashing head that bit with its bloody teeth in its futile attempt to break the straps, he hurried in finding the vein through the mess of blood and mud and Mako and sweat that had been punctured many times over consciously and willingly and rushed to stop the struggle so he could stop the ringing in his ears...or maybe he wanted to lock out any feelings of guilt. Better finish it quickly so it would no longer be a vague semblance of begging human eyes gripped with human terror.  
  
Right, he wasn't like Sebastian. He'd as soon do this to true humans in a heartbeat.  
  
"Now if you don't mind, I'd like to begin the actual procedure."  
  
The needle punctured the skin, and there was a loud thud as the body fell limply on the table, drifting in swarms of emptiness. "Now..our subject has normal blood, according to blood tests preceding Mako infusion, his blood type was AB ---"  
  
Into memories. "The most susceptible to Black Rain. Do you mean to ship it to Kanto?"  
  
Into dreams. "After all the effort of recovering it? Don't be silly, Professor Sebastian. I won't let it go so easily this time. That Professor Ivy...she wanted to keep it in a competent mental state for her own projects. Now it's my turn to have some fun." And into nightmares.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Sedative wore off Subject still asleep but capable of commotion Difficult to concentrate Input all data for Gemini I Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Gemini I Extract DNA Implant DNA of Gemini I from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject growling.  
  
Input all data for Zero-X Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Zero-X Extract DNA Implant DNA of Zero-X from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original state Ignore subject yelling.  
  
Input all data for Draconis Rex Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Draconis Rex Extract DNA Implant DNA of Draconis Rex into nuclei Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject screaming.  
  
Modify Transform Materia to transform biotic organisms into biotic organisms Heat Transform Materia Inject liquified Transform Materia Input data for n subjects with connection of memory Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to n subjects Inject all mutagenic agents Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject shrieking.  
  
Input all data for Vincent Valentine Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Vincent Valentine and four separate organisms programmed to release under heavy physical stress Chatlier's principle is asserted In a system of equilibrium if a stress is introduced equilibrium will shift to relieve the stress: Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, Chaos Extract DNA Implant altered DNA of Vincent Valentine into nuclei Repeat original procedure: Give standard Mako/Jenova infusion Re-program brain to release maximum concentrations of Mako/Jenova compound into bloodstream when subject's under stress Take into account Lamarck's second law: inheritance of acquired traits proved invalid by later research Remedy problem with hacksaw Problem remedied Subject out of control Must be sedated again Second sedation complete Find raiments Experiment complete Disconnect computer Raiments found Now there's no difference.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Hojo sunk into disconnected images of ancient ocurences that flooded his mind from which all rational thought had been purged.  
  
He was at the arch again, the sun flaring its scant rays through winter clouds in his dark brown eyes. He'd been outside for quite some time staring with poorly-veiled longing at the people under the arch glowing with love underneath a gentle spring sky that turned its other visage for him.  
  
...They're happy...  
  
Vincent and Lucrecia broke their embrace, and he could not consciously--- move--warn her--stop her---it was he who loved her...!  
  
.....But I love her...  
  
....I need her......  
  
Something was out of place. Then it struck him like the pierce of a needle improperly used as a weapon such as a sword or knife. He was in his memories, except now HE was his enemy watching---himself, wasn't it?  
  
Those mannerisms...those subtle gestures made in complete control of methodical thought...that was not Vincent. That was Hojo.  
  
.....I WANT her....  
  
Hojo couldn't stop himself running towards Lucrecia, and he took this hand that wasn't his own and grabbed her by the arm, his, Vincent's eyes burning in desire.  
  
...Hey, angel. I'll take you over to my place...  
  
That bastard.....so...this is how it happened..  
  
....I..I really shouldn't, Vincent...  
  
This is what led up to it..  
  
...Come on, baby. Your heart's divided between us, but who do you love more?  
  
A conscious decision on both their parts.  
  
...Y.....you're right...  
  
...Yeah, I know I am.  
  
All behind his back. And now he could only watch while it unfolded, while he relived this fool's memory of bodily lust.  
  
*~*~*  
  
He stared into a pair of unnervingly familiar shocked brown eyes that quivered in a thinly-veiled fury...he had been betrayed...they who he trusted...they BETRAYED HIM.....  
  
The child was the proof. DNA was the most honest creation of nature. This was NOT HIS CHILD.  
  
TRAITOR!  
  
The voice was nauseatingly distinct. It grew ever distant, as a hand gripped him by the collar and rammed him into the wall. Somewhere far off he felt a shift in his body..a change. He was sweating now, hard. His...own eyes burned into his very soul, exposing all lies for what they were.  
  
...Eddie, relax..this is a misunderstanding...  
  
.He felt his head bash into the wall.  
  
..Oh, yes, Valentine. Quite the misunderstanding. This infant disagrees...  
  
Are you saying that Lucrecia and I...? You're off your rocker...! That Jenova-bloated kid is yours, not mine! I had nothing to do with it. NOTHING.  
  
The green eyed baby stared at him hollowly, almost accusingly. Hojo felt his hand release his neck, and he slumped down on the floor, for the first time in his life, truly afraid.  
  
*~*~*  
  
He found himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun. At first he didn't know whether to be afraid, but should he really? Would Hojo kill himself out of jealous rage? It was almost funny.. the pathetic sight of that weasly little wuss who was about to kill him. Yeah, right.  
  
...You really think you can pull that trigger, Eddie?...  
  
An explosion of sound tore through his soul. Excruciating pain ripped through his left arm as the bullet shattered the bone and snapped it off, the arm and him landing with a flump on the floor. He stared into the eyes that exuded every emotion at once..forever altered and skewed by the hatred in his dark soul.  
  
I just did.  
  
The second shot threw him into oblivion.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Hojo woke with a dull ache that flowed through his body towards his left arm that concentrated into a pain that throbbed faint enough for him not to pay attention to it. The ceiling came back into focus. It was vaguely famliar... In fact...this whole situation was familiar, disturbingly so.  
  
Like a dream when woken up from it discovered its truth.  
  
"That was quite the disarming nightmare..." he mumbled, staring up into the broken and dusty lamp. "But it is nothing of importance, as it is the brain's method of relieving tension that finds no outlet-----" Hojo blinked widened eyes. He could think..he could speak again. His voice had changed a few octaves, but it was probably a product of imagination.  
  
The point was he could speak and think. A smile spread across his lips with...oddly.....difficulty...as if the facial muscles were tightened to the point to prevent a change in expression. Negligible. That wasn't the point. His eyes filled with glee as he gave a hollow laugh. "Ha...ha...ha.....you thought you could change ME...into an animal? It was only a temporary fluke..transient flaw in his neural patterns..they had failed again.....ha... HA...HA.....HA....."  
  
As much hilarity as there was in their utter failure, Hojo somehow found no mirth in the laugh...  
  
He heard Elm's mild tread on the floor and he shifted his head to the other side, shooting the younger scientist a heated glare.  
  
"Save your prattling, Professor. If you're so human, get off that table."  
  
Hojo arched an eyebrow..or at least tried to, and lifted himself halfway up, still bounded by the straps. Strange..his body felt..so...weak...so... drained.....He heard Elm's voice again in that tone others came to despise in himself. A dread suddenly seeped into his soul. "Move your left arm. I think you'll find the improvement very useful."  
  
The ache was more pronounced as he moved it...strange,.. he didn't feel it....plagued by numbness....but it moved....in a way almost...mechanical...  
  
He tore through the straps with surprsing ease, blinking groggily as he rose, knocking his head on the lamp. He took his other hand and rubbed it gingerly, finding it garbed in a long, black fingerless glove that stetched to his elbow, that was almost completely WHITE...Tangled strands of his hair, not quite as greasy as usual, lay against a disturbingly familiar high collar and spilled over his shoulder in thick, jet strands...  
  
Hojo slid a bit more wary now, off the table, in odd, wavy movements that were unfamiliar to him, strange...alien. He landed on the floor with a faint crunch, a heavy, cumbersome fabric flowing behind him. He walked unsteadily on legs that weren't his, and slowly whirled around and bored a questioning glare into the eyes of the other scientists. Patterns of crimson reflected on their spectacles. Spectacles..where were they?  
  
To his horror, they were underneath a triangular-shaped shoe sculpted entirely of brass painted with gold as an added...mockery..which he could see..distinctly. He could..see perfectly...in fact, clearer than he had ever seen in his entire life.  
  
He rigidly bent a stiffened back to grasp the broken glasses, the crushed shards dangling by a thread before they plinked on the floor. It was in this act of straightening when he...he saw himself in the leftover glass mirror cracked through the middle, and he saw the cracked reflection of not Hojo, but.....  
  
"Vincent Valentine...." he murmured, staring at the hollow crimson eyes that glared into his soul. In the mirror he saw the brass claw of inhumanity that ripped through the straps so easily..so effortlessly..now a burden on the remaining socket that plagued him with a sore ache from the amputated arm and this metallic limb that had been crudely shoved in its place and attatched to his skin with screws, bolts and wires hidden under that brass plating also streaked with gold paint..And the sick irony of it.. ..he had made it that way. He had...constructed every damned step of this man's hellish descent, of his fall. But now it all turned on him. He brought the pale white fingers to his mouth and raised his head and the flash of the teeth reflected from the mirror.  
  
Except, there were only....fangs. He ran his finger along one of them, distant and bewildered. He had..DESIGNED this... To mimick the creatures of myth and fantasy that fed upon youthful blood...  
  
Now he thirsted for.....no...NO.....it could not be. It was utterly impossible..... he was not VINCENT, he was HOJO, DAMNIT.....!!!!!!  
  
He had this claw, didn't he? With an enraged yell, he shattered the broken mirror. 7 years' bad luck, the superstitious said. What did it matter if it was 7,000 or 7,000,000,000 years....yes, he had designed Valentine in that way..... Now was HE, his CREATOR, forced to live that way? Live as long as the chemicals ordered him to? Never......NEVER...  
  
He clamped one hand and one claw on his head and screamed in torturous agony at this vengeance that betrayed its exacter.  
  
"I am...I am not..Vincent....Valentine....." he growled, the gold-hued claw clenching into a lifeless fist and drawing no blood but an impersonal clink that reverberated in his ears. He forcd his muscles that replied with agonizing delay and finally let him spin to face the two scientists. "I  
  
AM NOT HIM....."  
  
"You say that now, Professor. I assure you that there will come a time when not even you'll recognize yourself. Look at you..the thirst for blood you instilled in Mr. Valentine is coming out, I can see it." He nudged his cohort and put a hand to his mouth as he whispered aloud,"Professor Sebastian, lets leave before things get too CHAOTIC."  
  
"Ch.....Chaos....." Hojo felt raw terror shoot through every icy vein in his body. "Wh...what need do.....I have to..to fear it?" he asked, attempting to steel his nerves. "It is..my creation.....a surprisingly autonomous mind that Valentine had much difficulty in combatting...but that.....was precisely..the point...." Hojo reeled foward, the red eyes wide as something awoke within him, clamored to escape.....The deadly killer he had trapped in Valentine's soul..now.. was...his..."...But...my..intellect..is far more...prepared..." His claw dug into the cracked, bloodstained floor. Blood that screamed vengeance.. payback...."The poisoner cannot himself be poisoned.....if he feeds on it..." Animal-like breathing tore thorugh his chest that encased a sprinting heart. Blood pulsed in his head...he felt the sensation of changing...again...taking on a hideous form as he crashed on the floor, the shock barely visible as his features melted and became something far more terrifying. An unearthly shriek lifted off his vocal chords that choked off words once more and perverted them into a demon's roar...  
  
The demon he created...the demon of pure destruction, untainted by human thought, human reason, it was never human and never would be.  
  
Nor would...HE......ever...be..  
  
"I...I think you have made a mistake, Professor Elm," Sebastian muttered with heightening fear as the specimen writhed on the floor as if in the grip of Pluto himself. The corpselike red eyes rapidly exploding to hellfire virtually begged him for a quick and brutal death. The older man backed up and turned, running as briskly as fear permitted him past Tseng and Rude.  
  
The fur on Tseng bristled stiffly, nothing more. No empathy.must have come from the long years at the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research. It killed any sympathy for either of the victims, for Hojo or for the juvenille. Orders were orders, but for now, instinctual want for survival proved stronger.  
  
"Rrrrghets grrohg, Rhhudrgh," Tseng ordered half-coherently through a persevering mid-pitch growl. He holstered his gun as well as this clumsy grip allowed him, and he turned a hard gaze on Rude. "Thrghis hghrigh hrghabrough ghro hrghret hghugree." With that, Tseng took off towards the exit.  
  
"I don't know what you just said, sir...but I'm with you."  
  
The anguished roars grew louder as the Turks retreated through the nightmarish basement after the scientist. It was clear everyone sensed impending danger. They joined the stampeding flocks of bats. They too sensed something horribly, horribly wrong. Instinct commanded them to flee, and they obeyed.  
  
Their instincts weren't wrong.  
  
Glass shattered as demonic wings erupted from Hojo's back that squared its size, growing jagged fangs from jaws that spewed bloody hellfire. It beat the heavy wings, pushing itself up from the floor with lethal claws that gouged thorugh the decrepit floor. A roar flew from the depths of its monstrous diapraghm and its eyes, two burning red flames that allowed its victims to stare into the depths of its hellish soul.  
  
"Cowards," Elm accused as a terrible shadow loomed over him and the fiery breath of the demon burned at his face. He looked up amusedly, the demon's roar making the musty, blood-choked air shudder in inferiority. "My work here is done, Professor Oak," Elm acquiesced to the promise of a gory demise as the demon rose above him, its claws casting shadows of death on the wall. "As for you, Professor Ivy.."  
  
The dank air writhed with the deadly cry of bare hate.  
  
"I'll be seeing you soon."  
  
Hell encompassed heaven and rained in a maelstrom of blazing death.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED........  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 22!^^ 


	22. Janus Amused

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Sorry for the long absence of Cid.^^; This chapter will make up for it, hopefully.^^ And Brock and Rufus, too. ^^;  
  
*~*~*  
  
You are very unreasonable: we are doing the world a favor. Look at the problems we strive to solve thorugh these procedures: human population is limited, which limits overcrowding, which in turn limits disease and crime. We draw nearer to a utopia. How, you ask? We open their minds and force them to see how you have degraded those that differ from them in class, order, genus, species..we ourselves aren't that different from them. Aeons ago we were undoubtedly like them. Our communication was in the form of growling and grunting. We had no concept of a schism..there was none. We have lost sight of that as a result of Father Time. Now we have evolved..but at the same time degraded ourselves by lowering our fellow creature to slaves, base entertainment, and mindless sport. Can I ask you, who then is the brutal beast?  
  
~Unsigned retaliation from the OOTP to Kanto sovereigns unaffiliated with the PPA(PPL). From the merge of radical and conservative opinions, it is assumed to be the result of a collective effort to legitimize the organization declared illegal by both the PPA and the police department.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 22: Janus Amused  
  
Grief slayed the urge to shed tears in private where critical dry eyes scoffed at those that were not.. They kneeled there under the gravid skies and wept through the rain, unaware that the cold bodies they held in their hands grew colder than before, filmed in slime and things unnatural and fearsome...that filled them with horror and disgust until they realized they too had become little more than monsters.  
  
Their turbulent wails jerked Red from his haunches and dragged his lean form upright, ever wary. It was like the cry of the Gi, relentless, unsparing...ever hungering for slaughter. Except there was no confusion in the Gi's war cry. The haunting whoop that was lost in the thunder was lost itself, confused, afraid, the cry of witnesses to the destruction of their bodies that they had called human until the rains looted this thing that they had once taken for granted.  
  
Red launched himself through the mud, scarcely advancing three steps when he sent a soft growl through the heavy rainfall. He sensed the birth of monsters...of consciousless beasts that the ignorant often mistook him for.  
  
Like the Gi...  
  
He backed to his post, convincing himself they were no longer on Gaia, the hated tribe was dead, and the disfigured shapes trudging through the thickening mud were distorted by the clattering rain that his sharp eye could not pierce through. Besides, defending the town from the dragon..that took much higher priority than the constant animal cries that permeated the night shroud.  
  
Knowing who the dragon was trickled drops of guilt into his soul.  
  
He had a duty. A duty to a strange town he didn't know the name of, whose people were distant and far from his heart that beat strongly in yearning to instead defend those he had in fact bonded with.  
  
Like Cid.  
  
But Cid became a killer, a murderer. A murder of guiltless tribles and harmless peoples. Or..at least, it was the dragon hiding in Cid. Without a doubt. The dragon...it was the dragon they guarded, were ready to kill, not the pilot.  
  
"It's no use pretending that's not actually Cid," Red shook his head in steady resolve and shoved his soggy nose against the mounting mud, closing his eye in that bit of remorse that separated him from primal killers. He raised an ear with evident tension as his scarlet fur-----well..now blackened by the strange-hued rain--bristled at every noise, fearful of a gunshot. He shifted uncomfortably in the black grime that piled amidst his ankles. From his post he had a clear view of the figuratively entombed, rooted to the earth with a white hand on the handle of the gun.  
  
Red watched the living corpse with a warning eye and a questioning growl. Vincent answered him with the slightest shift in his soulless gaze that aimed at the weapon. The click of the loaded shotgun conveyed a meaning clearer than spoken words. Red gave a brisk nod, and returned to his post, the sucking sound of the mud pulling on the bottoms of his paws as he sat tensely among the cries of what magnified in his mind of phantom Gi.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Cid pressed his face stained in a mixture of sweat and the leftovers of sobs and wiped them on his arm split by scars old and new that ran jagged lines across the rough skin. He opened his eyes that reddened around the corners and puffed and swelled and glared into the spartan ceiling.  
  
"And here you are tellin' Stife to be more manly," he chided. Goddamn it, he hated when he cried. He could turn and hide his moistened face from Tifa, from Barret, from anyone, really...except Draconis Rex.  
  
The thunder permeating the windows roared in accordance with the dragon. A haughty, pompous, obnoxious roar that made Cid want to tear the dragon's lungs out...yeah., sure. Like that was even POSSIBLE. He couldn't do a THING to that overstuffed son-of-a fucking bitch.  
  
Your human scientists attribute emotion to humanity. Trying to hold back emotion...avoiding it, denying it, ADMITTING.....you're not human.  
  
"Flaming shitwad..!!!" growled Cid, hurling himself to a semi-upright position only to get yanked by the ropes like a leash. A leash? Leashes were for animals... and..and..and NOTHING. He backed up on the bed and pulled his sore legs out from under the sheet. They even gave him some jeans that were about two sizes too small so he'd be half-decent. His scowl curved into a half-smile as he leaned his shoulders against the wall, letting his hands dangle by the ropes as he regarded them satisfactorily. "You're just good at mind-games, Drac. I only believe what my five senses say, and I'm seein' two man hands and-" He leaned one elbow against the wall, flashing a grin of improved confidence, "--that you're a motherfucking liar."  
  
The rain clattered on the window in a steady, continuous sheet that pronounced the glorious execution of a tyrannical race.  
  
Typical human.  
  
A surge of energy, and the rope snapped, its coarse pieces flumping on the floorboards followed by a yelp and a crash as Cid landed on his chest. "Crazy fuck," he groaned, rubbing at his sore wrists. Shit, he felt like crap about now. He pushed himself up by his knees, wincing as he rubbed at the raw skin with his calloused fingers. He stared into his head and snorted ruefully, "I...I guess I owe ya."  
  
The dragon did not respond. "Hey, Drac..!" Cid repeated a bit louder, cupping one hand at the side of his mouth. The storm ran rampant outside the window without the roar of thunder. "You're gonna answer me or what?! I said I owe ya!"  
  
Strange...it seemed that the dragon already knew it.  
  
Muttering a low cuss and shaking his head in disgust, Cid advanced for the door, in his, for now, unshared mind, planning hundreds of long chains of verbal acids to burn his so-called "comrades" with once he opened the frigging door.  
  
Make that IF, Cid grumbled in his mind. Consciously he paused and waited for the dragon to make some smart-ass remark, some commentary on his stupidity, or even that grating laugh in all its bombast and "better than you" attitude.  
  
"Cold shoulder, eh?" he asked his mind, placing the heel of his bare foot on the door and yanking with as much force six or seven hours of languishing let him. "Fine," he huffed. "Maybe I can get a shit's worth of time to think----" Frown lines added to his premature wrinkles. Think? Thought. Door was locked. He looked at the doorknob and took his hand off of it. He took those things apart dozens of times before but took it apart with tools. Right now..he didn't have anything, except a pair of someone else's mad-ugly pants. Not even a cig, for Christ's sakes.  
  
The rain tumbled off the glass panes and into the ground below. Looked like that would be his way out. He jogged heavily on the floorboards, conscious of the clamor his weight made on the wood..maybe it'd attract plastic girl and chrome-arm. Heh.too bad for them, he wasn't gonna stick around long enough for them to nab him.  
  
Cid unlatched the window and grit his teeth. "This is all your fucking fault, Lockheart..." His hands slipped on the latch as something in his gut twitched in warning.  
  
Whatever nagging feeling he got he shrugged it off and pulled open the window, thrusting his head out which connected with the automatic death dealer, its rigid shape fashioned after outmoded weapons that still managed to maim and kill despite their bad accuracy and their fucking loud warning sound that threw any hope of stealth out the window. . And this one threatened to put a hole in his friggin head that somethin weird was happening to--pinpricks of pain erupted all over his scalp as the alarmingly familiar sensation of skin turning into scales...hit....him....  
  
Cid clamped one remolding hand on the side of his head that shuddered violently as the rain battered his head. He grabbed his forehead with that hand, feeling the scales. "Christ...not AGAIN... NOT_AGAIN....." He shot a panicked glare at the corpselike man, unmoved. Cid fell backwards in the mud that swallowed his ankles that began to take on that blue-silver tint, watching not the gun that followed his movement downward, but the rain around it, the fast-falling rain more relentless than 100000 scalpels. Cid shut his eyes that the rain seeped into, backed up on his elbows and side as a tail burst out from behind him and snaked under his scaling legs still covered by the ill-fitting pants, as he breathed through lungs that expanded irregularly and painfully...all the worse for someone who was bound to a pack a day.  
  
Vincent observed with gun drawn. An ordinary experience. Almost routine. Commonplace. He stared into Cid's eyes now slit through middle.  
  
Like a reptile. A dragon. Draconic Rex....as a piercing cry shot from Cid as the wings once again broke through his skin and spread stiffly like divergent upward crustal movements that erupted into the sky, he bit down on his molars, some of them sharpening and pushing through his gums, fresh blood pouring from the hardening gumline and the rain filling his mouth. Goddamnit.....no wonder he was so quiet..just biding his time...waiting for him to make the jackass decision to escape out the window. And as he pondered his own stupidity, he hardly even noticed the force that overthrew his tentative control over his actions.  
  
His eyes glowed in sudden malice.  
  
"The hell you doin', Valentine?!" A clawed hand shot foward and grabbed the barrel of the gun, pushing it away from his head in relative ease. "Don't point yer carbine at me, you're gonna shoot someone's head off with that piece 'a junk!!" The immovable corpse simply levelled the long barrel at the dragon-man's head a second time as if it had never been diverted in the first place.  
  
He crossed his arms over a puffed-out chest, grinned with sharp and dull teeth straining to occlude each other as the deluge poured across his face agleam with some strange vibrancy. "I said I don't_like yer carbine. Can't ya take a hint?" He ventured a step to the side that brought him a couple inches closer to Vincent. The indifferent weapon pressed against his temple. Ready to expel the bullet at a moment's notice. Cid looked greatly amused. With a cold smirk he made a gesture with his arm, his eyes wandering down until he saw the brass limb, blackened by the rain. "That's one helluva job, son. Don't ya feel a little one-sided, ya know.....asymetrical?" A shake of the head was all he got for an answer. But that was all he needed. Vincent was a fast shot, but the dragon, in speed, could not be matched by a "human's." Whatever enhancements made to his defense, they were not made to his speed. He had actually been designed to be slower than the average human. Another reminder of his long sleep, his punishment for his sins...  
  
This sluggishness did not guard against the claws shot in a blur at Vincent's weapon, wrenched it from him, and aimed it at the right arm and its shreds of sickly white that was an obvious target in the Black Rain. "I'll fix that for ya."  
  
With unnerving aplomb Cid emptied the clip into Vincent's arm. They were old bullets, meant to shatter, not pierce. And though the rain poured unending,  
  
at point-blank range, Cid didn't have much of a chance of missing.  
  
Vincent groaned with his white lips still clamped agaist each other as the bullets ripped through the bone and out the other end. Slightly painful...the wound would heal: the traces of Mako and Jenova cells in his blood assured that. But the utter surprise, of the other being, of Highwind's demon that his nemesis now etched into his soul.  
  
As he waited for the.....modifications to his blood to take their delayed effect, the cadaverous man couldn't help but laugh in a quiet, low tone. "For an eternity I have descended alone....now there is one who may descend with me." His red eyes raised at the dragon-man, who, finding the gun useless, snapping his weapon in two with a malicious fervor. "But it cannot be trusted," he resolved, the crack of his shotgun being broken in two distant in a removed and far-off ear." I have learned to.control my demons. It is an arduous process...his life may conclude before his demons are tamed."  
  
The glow in the slit eyes abated.  
  
"You FUCKIN' ASSHOLE!!!!!' Cid roared, hurling the broken weapon into the muck and glaring at his claws. "So THAT'S what you were up to, huh? You're gonna turn everyone against me 'cause ya THINK you know how I act?!! I'm pissed at gothfreak, yeah..but am I STUPID enough to SHOOT him in the fucking arm when I KNOW he can rip me into itty bitty little pieces of bloody SHIT?!" He let hot rage burn in the scaled limbs. Jesus, it was this all over again, except it was harder to fight...the change...THEY couldn't see it, it was only...in the words..how he acted.  
  
Their trust in him soon proved clear.  
  
"You would certainly be capable," Vincent answered without any sort of inflection, one straight, flat, line of lifeless words. Thing about it was, it was just as mordant as any burst of bitter passion...maybe more so. "The young and reckless tend to do that. They act on an instinct..." Vincent did not blink, absorbed into the distant past. His own demons swallowed the hollow hole where his soul used to rest.  
  
Instinct is why her child lies dead.  
  
The chemicals finally took effect, expelling the smoking bullets that fell from the sealed flesh. The past and present disentangled and he distanced himself from the memory of his sins and stared at the pilot squarely in his menacing eyes. "Now that your demon has been released, the necessity that demands you to be confined is greater..."  
  
The reaction was no surprise.  
  
"It's HIM that doin' this..c'mon, Valentine, you've been through this shit-- you know good as me how it is---!" Vincent was stone-faced, no different from the normal, but this time it emanated a pure lack of trust. The glare of Vincent Valentine was rattling enough to an ally, but to an enemy...The gaze tore and divded both the innocent and guilty soul..and Cid knew it. He was falling apart, sweating like shit, making it all the easier for the dragon to weave his lies. "You--KNOW-- me...I'm Draconis Rex---the hell?!?! I'm NOT Cid Highwind--SHUT YOUR DIRTY FUCKING MOUTH------"  
  
A bestial howl collided with a stab of lightning as a flying mass of fur and muscle hit Cid square in the shoulder and toppled him to the slippery ground, his scaled form gouging an imprint in the mud that swept it in piles. The lupine/leonine pinned him by the wings, pressing his whole body weight against the scaled appendages. A gleaming eye turned on him and he blinked, suddenly unnerved by the pilot's wry smile. "What's the matter, catdog? Ain't you the king of beasts? Don't look like it to me." He felt the grip of Red's paws on his wings loosen. Worked like a charm. "No kingly roar for me?" He suddenly rose, Red yelping as he tumbled on his side. He jumped to his paws, more wary, more untrusting as. Cid leaned in his face and scoffed, "C'mon. You lost an eye to the Gi, eh? Sure ya didn't LET 'em poke it out?" He jabbed at the saturated air with a draconic claw.  
  
"I lost this eye protecting my tribe. I am proud of my blindness," Red answered, steeling himself against the taunts coming from one he used to call friend. Cid laughed, striding towards Red's blind side, holding his head straight with a scaled palm.  
  
"Just for a bunch of HUMANS. You sure are an ass." He sauntered behind him, the outline of the dragon-man's wings held against the darting lightning. "A BLIND ass. Wait a minute. Asses're donkeys. I should call ya a blind kitty--MEOW!!!" Red's glare hardened, but he stayed himself. CId wasn't acting like himself at all..his namecalling was frequent, but NEVER to this extent.  
  
But now he got serious.  
  
"Ya think your SIGHT's worth even half a life? ESPECIALLY a human? Humans---  
  
they ain't worth catchin' COLD over, much less yer frggin' EYE," Cid berated, enthused at the ferocious growl climbing in Red's throat. He had borne insults before, but when it came to someone injuring his tribe with spears of words...the tribe whose murderous hands that his father fell at, forever entombed by the toxic tip of the Gi's arrows.  
  
"I do not consider them lower or higher than me," Red breathed, restraining righteous amger beneath basic reasoning. "But you do. You want to destroy this village because you think you're entitled to that." He spun to face the towering form of the pilot, whose mutated features were twisted with a blatant malice. "Because humans have hurt you? They've hurt me, too. It's my fault you're in this mess, but you can't destroy this place. We'll have to battle if it comes to that." The flashing ball of flame flickered amidst the downpour. "I don't want this...you understand, Cid."  
  
"Sure, I understand. You're full 'a dogshit AND you're a traitor!!" He grabbed Red by the muzzle and crushed his snout against his lower jaw. "Can't ya SEE, Red?!!  
  
It's me-!!! It's CID_HIGHWIND, fuck it!!!" he yelled, the slit eyes filled with crazed desperation that so recently had been raw cruelty. Cold distrust radiated from the one eye obscured by Cid's claws. He loosened his hold and stepped back. "It's the wings, right? Stupid..fucking...why're ya lookin' at me like that, Red? Ya don't trust me? This is ME, understand?!? That son of a bitch dragon freak's messin' with your mind!!!" He sprang and landed directly in front of the wolf/lion, grasping Red by the forelegs and hoisting his dripping face up to his. His lower jaw dropped, releasing a roar of anger that hurled a tornado into Red's face."I'm tellin' the truth, goddamnit!!!!" He let go of one of Red's forelegs and thrust out his arm. "Ya see that?!?! See it?!? Those're MY scars!!" He pointed Red's eye at the arm, the rapid trails of Black Rain streaming over the jagged claw marks. Cid was shaking now, his other claws tearing a deeper hole in Red's front leg. Goddamnit it..why won't they believe him?!?! It WAS him this time, it was Cid----  
  
In some monumental frustration, the pilot with his claws still shaking dragged Red by the shoulders and with a violent yell and his eyes emanating aa total breakage of all sense in the space of that instant, he hurled Red into Vincent. The two forms upon collision toppled into the sludge. A blur of silver raced past Red's face as Cid braked in midair, crossing his arms as he smirked at the slowly- recovering beast, gazing hurtfully skyward as Cid waved an arm at them with a pompous grin of one who saw the end result of an injurious prank and sped off into the sky.  
  
Suckers.  
  
Red lost himself in rumination and after slipping more than a lot, swayed and righted himself, absently heard Barret's loudening tromp and stared skyward with a dismayed growl.  
  
"Yo! N-dawg, y'awright?" Barret queried, fiddling around with a busted umbrella that he couldn't get to open all the way. Red lowered his snout slightly, and shuffled rearward., piercing the cloud-engulfed skies with his one eyeball that shifted pensively.  
  
"Unharmed, Barret." He pointed his nose earthward, ready to relay the news of their failure briskly. "Cid's gone. We have to find him as soon as possible."  
  
Barret nodded hasilty while he started to back up, his boots caked with deep mud as he shouted above the din of thunder,  
  
"G'wan stop 'im---I'm gonna look foh Tifa!"  
  
Red and Vincent started to head through the sea of muck, but the slosh of Red's steady gait receded, one paw held in the heavy air as he backpedaled gradually and turned around, his tail twitching in a latent anxiety.  
  
"She's not with you?"  
  
"She came runnin' when she heard da gun go off but I can't find her round nowhere--" His small eyes widened as the lightning revealed something behind Red. "Watch yo' back, N-dawg!" Barret warned as a flurry of deadly bullets rattled through the darkness and left holes in the shape that camouflaged with the enduring downpour. "Man, dey're everwhere--"  
  
Red's eye shifted backwards and caught a glimpse of the dark shape slink into the darkness, a rusted brown blood dripping from the bullet holes that slowly sealed with the Black Rain. He rubbed his eye with his paw. For whatever reason his eye decieved him and he saw the dark shape in a short white midrift and---he turrned about and plunged foward again through the mud that steadily grew to waist-high, trying to push this minor concern out of his mind and replace it with the much more immediate threat. "Take care of yourself. This place is dangerous."  
  
Strange, he pondered, that Barret didn't change along with.....the rest of the humans in the town, whose presence was now unmistakably real: he heard unearthly wails rail against the thunder, that clearly were of beasts very much like him, and not of the Gi. He nudged that into the corner of his mind along with the other creature with clothing he was on the verge of remembering but left the memory behind in an isolated pocket of his brain, and focused on the task that loomed ahead.  
  
The waning fireball danced in the ebony sheet, a red-orange phantom that vanished into the air. The rain stayed relentless as the sludge swelled. Barret plodded through the sopping mud that clung to his belt, headed into the very midst of them freaks to keep on looking, shouting at the top of his lungs without any answer back. And when he stayed out there 'till he wallowed in the mud and couldn't see a thing 'cuz the rain was in his eyes, he wondered if Tifa...  
  
Hell y'get dat kinda idea? Barret shook the rain off his dripping head and knocked on it with his meaty fist. Brain still there. Then why'd he think of somethin' like that? Tifa was out there. Just had to find her, that's all. He could stay out there that if it was actual rain he'd get pneumonia 30 times over but he'd find her. Town was small, anyway. Small as Corel, people-wise. Barret felt the freak eyes boring into his back. SMALLER den Corel. Was he and Tifa the only people left?  
  
The wailing moan of the creatures that now swamped the peaceful town echoed the cry of stray specters far into a bleak and forlorn night.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Ephemeral scars left on the horizon carved the imprint of Gemini's claws in the bludgeoned mire. A primal grunt of determined desperation spread through the air, choked off by the thunder that rattled in his brain that now clamored madly for what was lost forever.  
  
What...HE lost forever..in one agonizing chain reaction. If he hadn't changed, he wouldn't have fought, Misty wouldn't try to save his own worthless ass, and she wouldn't get caught outside.... It didn't have to happen. None of it.  
  
But it did.  
  
He smacked a liquid slab out of his path in anguished rage. The grime accumulated in dark clumps between the malformed digits on his hands in cruel rebellion, staying in his line of sight as if on purpose, ingraining the agonizing realization more solidly in his heart.....that the same liquid that destroyed him now destroyed Misty.  
  
The rain continued to mock Brock's mind while it soothed his misshapen body. Its double faces gnawed at his writhing, guilt-eaten guts as he desperately tried to mollify it, to keep it from getting worse..  
  
It doesn't hurt as much..he mused with only half-hearted conviction... .it's still no better than a needle. But for some reason... He ran his claws over his chest and searched for the remains of the pieces of his heart. Not the beating heart vital for existence, the one that pumped black blood through vein and artery alike with no longer any distinction between them save for function, but the soul so frequently attatched to the heart in the minds of humans. After efforts that ended in futility he let his monstrous hand fall unnaturally to his side and came to a conclusion that left hate ugly and rotten in his mind.  
  
It hurts MORE....  
  
Death, in all natural or induced forms, devestates and destroys, eats at slowly or devours rapidly the one who witnesses it. This physical death of humanity, for few an ascent, for many the lowest possible descent, behaved no differently. As tears lost themselves in the taunting flood, a roar of no longer a friend, he felt the mud break under him as he let gravity and the weight of his misshapen body pull him down and shifting his eyes away from a blazing sun that decided to be a sadistic asshole, he felt reversed, flipped upside-down in such a way that would fill his head with blood and make him sicker than he already felt. It was HIM that used to be lost, confused, angry, afraid...Misty would never see this because she was human...she was MEANT to be...she COULDN'T be a freak...it just.couldn't....happen...!!!!  
  
Yeah, sure. Brilliant, stupid.  
  
Gemini curled his fist and made the black blood spurt from the veins in his wrist only for it to subside with the hailing drops of the same hue. He sank further in the mud, just as Misty now sank... How ELSE did I get to be a freak? Because it can happen to ANYONE.  
  
Unsuspecting Pokémon trainers included.  
  
He pressed the claws with enough force to break through the scales and feel the ends of the claws puncture the back of the wrist. He tasted the air and the loathsome drug hammered his forked tongue. It recoiled in immediate revulsion in a bitter comprehension of the truth.  
  
The same chemical pouring from the skies floated inside of him..... Now it swam in Misty. The unfeeling monster that used to BE Misty. Blatant cruelty in the leaden sheet. Of all mutated Pokémon out of the 250 + on Earth, it had to be a deformed GYARADOS..  
  
She always hated Gyarados, didn't she? It was big and scary and downright unpleasant..exactly like her when she got mad. But even if it mirrored what flared up in her tantrums, she didn't...DESERVE what she was.  
  
Brock let his hard eyelids snap shut in an agonizing pulse of thought.  
  
No way to get rid of it all. No way to change it. Just deal with it and learn to stand it. Deal with the bloodlust, the changes, deal with the fact that every second a psycho wants to donate you to science. Accept that you can't have your old self back.  
  
Accept that your best friend's a monster.  
  
Gemini felt his blood steam and churn as the image of gored corpses that formed broken wreaths amidst miles of ruin entered blazing vision. And on this macabre throne the sun with his light-shrouded head swathed in streams of white hair that spilled across a visage shining with utter elation. The shadow of the grey creature darkened the crushed bodies of the Rockets mauled twice over, the ripped fragments of their now bestial faces piled under Angelon's feet that were thrice crushed as the land Gyarados' webbed claws pushed into the tattered hide as it robotically climbed the hill of corpses and upon reaching the angel's flank, turned around in trancelike rigidity.....  
  
The emptiness in eyes that glowed a servile white conveyed total willingness to obey.  
  
"MRGHESTIE.....?" came the weakened growl that wavered in the distant thunder and made it less understandable than it already was. He leaped out of the mire that weighed his body, already heavy with the bleak yoke of despair that drove him to scale the edge of ruin where the grey creature stood in a way that wove unvoiced dread in Brock's skull. He suddenly stopped his scramble, the sound of Angelon's euphonic voice penetrating his ears.  
  
"There is no one named that here, Daemon." Angelon lowered his scarless head, covered gloriously with Black Rain that cloaked his fair form in proclamation of a virtuous triumph. The rivers of white dripped sable droplets that poured in dark streams that coated the mutated corpses below his feet.  
  
What do you MEAN, there's no one named that?! Gemini growled in a desperation of dreary contrast. He leaped to where Angelon stood, the viper's tongue rattling in the angel's face. His claw snapped through the black sheet and he growled in unfettered wrath. There, you see her? That's MISTY, understand?! MISTY.  
  
Angelon's tranquil white eyes followed Gemini's claw and turned, the dark curtain hiding the content smile that marked his white features. Liver and kidney quietly squished underneath his heels as his tail lashed amidst the cape of blackness. He ascended the throne of ruin, from there surveying his pawns that he had so easily stripped of will. His eyelids closed and the glow was shut out. Gemini's eyes darted wildly, the once-conspicuous angel rendered invisible by the chemical deluge. From out of nowhere the voice permeated his pointed ears in the distinct ring of an otherworldly bell that proclaimed judgement on the loathed race:  
  
"On this day of deliverance, the names of human are cursed and damned to Cosytus...all of us have been reborn..." A flash of lightning sketched the outline of the angel against the distance. "...those who named me Gemini II and you Gemini I, they are hereafter damned....." The white eyes opened again, burning with the fires of white-hot stars standing in a distant galaxy. Though little more than a freak on the scathing tongue of humans, power seemed to imbue him, the same power that his enemy thrived on, the power, though only in the inflated imagination, where humans could feel they controlled the very stars. In that moment, he had surpassed humanity.....and had embraced its nature in opposing it. With a near royal sweep of his robed arm to encompass the monster kingdom, he proclaimed with despotic might, "...This law.Angelon has decreed to the children of the Black Rain."  
  
His audience was taken by a grudging silence, distrustingly pensive as Gemini could still add 2 + 2 and it equalled 4.  
  
It all added up...he understood in one painful snap. And now he was glaring into the eyes of a liar. And he was stupid enough to be duped. And too wrapped up in his drowning thoughts to find out exactly WHAT was in those drums that Team Rocket picked up. It all made sense...piecing itself in a schemed puzzle.  
  
Now that it was solved, every degree of his hate exploded into inferno of the seventh circle of hell, massive torches in his eyse that spurned raging magma.  
  
Gemini hurled his night-hued form through the leaden air and smashed into Angelon, who toppled from his throne into the climbing earth. Gemini followed him with a savage leap, landing on Angelon's clothed chest.  
  
I see it now, you fucking LIAR!! The demon roared with vengeful hate, dropping to his knees and bringing his claws across Angelon's face, pulling his hand away to find it covered in cold, pure white blood that dribbled down his rain-drenched arm. White blood, huh? It was just as red as any human's. With a nerve-freezing hiss, Gemini sank his face into the open wound before the Black Rain could seal it and drank it, the fluid burning at his throat, burning because it was blood he wasn't designed to drink..but he didn't give a damn. Not at this point. Not after what happened.  
  
His demonic eyes burned hot enough to draw sweat beads from both their heads.  
  
"HUOOAAAAARGHH......" You had it planned this way the WHOLE TIME... He brought his other arm, shaking with unleashed rage, and gripped Angelon's throat, crushing it mercilessly. Well you won, Emperor Adenine. Now everyone's a freak. That was your idea? THIS is your...salvation?..!! The claws buried relentlessly in the back of the white neck that bled white blood that rapidly disappeared down Brock's raging throat. Indeed, the only thing that kept him from breaking the flimsy neck was that the blood weakened him, drained his own strength as well as the angel's.  
  
His chokehold slackened, and he recoiled his forked tongue, the white blood dripping down his lips. His spiked shoulders slumped with the weight of anguish.  
  
And you had to take Misty with them, too. The look of sadness burned with hatred that gouged at the soul of the drained angel, whose mouth was half-open as shocked eyes gazed into nothingness. Gemini began to walk away, his tail dragging through the dark slime. And for your information, she's still Misty, he snarled in cold hate. I don't care WHAT you say.  
  
The angel said nothing.  
  
Help.....please stop...I want to live...don't kill me... please....!!  
  
"WRRGAAAAGHHT?----" Gemini turned halfway and growled, only to feel the unfeeling grasp of a scaled hand tightly constricting his arms. He flung his head backwards and saw Angelon's wounded body slowly vanish in white light.  
  
But he would not leave this rebellion unchastised.  
  
His mental command rang through the empty minds of his drudges.  
  
Daemon wishes to endure the human mastery the enemy punishes him with. Go forth, children, and punish him as well.  
  
Gemini's eyes glowed with tardy dread as the haunting glow of Misty's eyes burned into his head as she held him still, easy prey for the Giovanni's deadly horn that flashed in the Black Rain.  
  
His struggle was useless, worthless, as the white blood retaliated in his muscles, weakened him, sapped him of energy, made him lean and reel as Zero-X's hell-shaking roar blared through his head, a cacophanous din that blended with Butch's croak and Cassidy's shrill screech.  
  
All he could do was helplessly plea.  
  
Misty...don't do this....  
  
A mindless growl of relentlessness in hypnotized reply.  
  
Irony really was sick.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Rufus could do no more than to ponder the roar that hung in the roads and boulevards of the slumbering city..  
  
That sound was the most unnatural thing that had come out of his throat. For a lengthened time he would deny that that sound belonged to him, that inhuman sound that was entirely meaningless..especially for someone who used words to manipulate and dominate...an entire corporate EMPIRE that functioned on the principle of fear. Hire or fire, pardon or condemn: he ruled with absolutism. To hell with the beauracracy. None of them were competent, one had been waiting to backstab him--it was because of him that the president even had occasion to doubt his indisputable control over not only this company but the cities of Saffron and Vermillion, with spheres of influence in Kanto and as distant as the Orange Islands.  
  
How naive... foolish of me to entertain such an idea. He lifted his paws and straightened the collar of his turtleneck, a practiced habit that carried more or less the same finesse and poise..at least he would like to BELIEVE that...paws were vastly different than hands, forbidding the subtle movements exclusive to a  
  
simian or human hand. But he managed. This only served to heighten his confidence, his esteem. With a growl rising in pride that cast its pompous shadow over shame, he brushed the accumulating rain off his white coat, upon which his mouth locked into a smile.  
  
That sign of luxury and wealth, of affluence and prestige, with its fine fabric that he spent a small fortune to get tailored, the thread used to sew on its button worth gross monetary value in itself, this trenchcoat,.though a conspicuous tail moved restlessly under its folds, blotted the stigma of inhumanity.  
  
He riveted monarchial eyes at the palace of his empire and snarled.  
  
The old eel failed at his endeavor. To render me something else? To destroy my identity? The cat-man began to walk through the Black Rain, ripples rolling through the dark water that plunged into Vermillion's underbelly. The weight of the rain flattened Rufus' ears and drained off his whiskers, falling into the ever-swelling flood that crashed off the sidewalk. The glaciers miles north of Midgar could not rival the absolute zero in his eyes that burned with ice. He has succeeded in one sense, but.. I am still Rufus Shin-Ra. The president approached his reserved parking area, the sleek machine of eminence spoiling underneath the heavy storm. I...JUST had this repainted. He ran a paw over the rain-encompassed hood. Already the chemical started to eat at the paint. Closer examination sent wailing sirens through his nerves. The confounded rain ate through the car ITSELF....he gingerly felt around the car as if searching for a broken bone and heard an alarming crunch. He glared down into the hole, the chemicals bubbling ravenously as he saw the engine literally MELT.  
  
The blizzards exploded and raged into liquid fire.You...FILTHY....OLD...WORM....You are lucky that I can bear to stand your PRESENCE, after what you did...but_WRECKING_my_CAR... you have signed your own DEATH warrant. In his rage he brought the weight of his paw through the deteriorating hood ornament, a few indistinguishable letters left of the Shin-Ra insignia that bounced under the ruined car. Rufus nailed a wrathful gaze into the sculpted metal that dissolved through the reaction through the rain. Scathingly typical of him. The unspoken hiss burned in his mind. why hadn't he seen it coming? The old man specialized in chemicals...freakish substances that turned regular humans into monsters-----  
  
That said, a thought entered his fully functional mind.  
  
Why am I concerned about the limousine in the first place while I, the chief executive of Shin-Ra, is a blasted CAT?...!!  
  
A frown halved his feline features as he turned from the defunct limo and stared blankly at the sidewalk. To his utter disgust, it seemed as if he would have to walk home like any other Vermillion----or any other citizen on this entire ISLAND, for that matter.  
  
The very thought made his blood crawl. Doing so would lead him away from the safety of Vermillion's wealthier section and take him into the common route...perhaps not as deplorable as Midgar, but the wretched areas of any city... he wished to avoid them.  
  
But he was left with no other option.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Miraculously he did not tire after that walking. It must have been an addition to this.. Embarassing...form...  
  
Or it could be the long distances he had to walk back when.....  
  
Rufus avoided delving into what may have been a debilitating memory when he heard a siren in the distance that swelled in a blaring crescendo and died as a squad car raced by his deteriorating limo...The police? Rufus' open mouth shut and curled into a frown. Petty thieves or gang activity, no doubt. Hmph.  
  
A voice from behind an alley sent a wary cold through the vertebrae of Rufus' spine that straightened in heightened awareness of an intruding presence. Surprised he was to find a....well..a human that had not changed into some other form: more shocked he was to find the voice was directed at him.  
  
"Neither of the above, Mister President." A partially sheltered alley crossed by heavy shadow radiated a voice. The feline growled in fearful curiosity, compelled to advance towards the alley immersed in shadows of deceit and trickery. "You may ask how this is posisble, how I can understand you while your voice box forbids speech. Or why I have not reacted to the chemical precipitation. I suppose you desire to know." The shadow moved inches at a time. Cautiousness, latent wariness rose from both sides. "Let us say, for the first, it is an inheritance and leave inquiries at that."  
  
I am through with attempting to solve riddles. Why is it that you have accosted me at this hour? Rufus snarled with partially closed jaws, the flash of his sharp teeth visible through the enveloping darkness.  
  
"Why, only to make a proposition, Mister President.It will benefit both sides equal-----"  
  
The said president suddenly lunged in the direction of the alley and snarled ferociously at the shadow. For all he knew, this potential benefactor could be Hojo, effortlessly distorting his voice and lulling his prey into a degrading and humiliating trap. Hah. He would be no prey. I have made enough one-sided deals to last me a LIFETIME. State your business being here---a threatening roar as Rufus grabbed the figure from the alley and hurled him onto the sidewalk. His eyes flared. A labcoat..that was all he could see of him through the darkness, except for the faint glow of energy that surrounded his body, that oddly caused the dark liquid to halt before it hit the human's skin. But the labcoat..That signal of double betrayal....he would not be a dupe a third time. He stood above the nonplussed man, shaking coniderably from the impact, pale from the shock. The man managed to squirm into a sitting position, one hand buried in his labcoat pocket. Quite stoic for one that faced the threat of a throatful of claws. It would seem that he had faced such beasts before. It could be he actually WAS, and somehow prevented it since those cursed scientists seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else.....and revelled in this exclusive knowledge. Ha...but if he was actually an animal like him, he did not show it. He could rip his throat apart if he wished to.  
  
Human perspiration dripped down the man's head. If he could not prove to this feline that he indeed had something to benefit it, this attempt to preserve the remnants of the good half of his name would cost him his life, and liberty certainly did not outweight that..but as it was, this was a fortunate moment. "There we are..." the man exclaimed in a false show of exuberance as he displayed the array of knobs and buttons to the visage of pure ferocity. "A miniature thought projection simulator. An animal is not an animal unless its brain is an animal's. This device will prove that you are inside that animallike form and that you are still competent of your position." Rufus' jaw unhinged and growled furiously at the scientist. For your information, He held his arm and pointed a claw at himself wth furious obstinance, I have ALWAYS been a competent executive.  
  
The man with the labcoat smiled and answered straightfowardly, "Will your employees know that?" He arched greyed eyebrows that framed analytical eyes , the pupils of which were so small that in even in light, the color would be hard to determine. All he knew they radiated a vague tint of raw malice. "Do your employees know that? They will see nothing but a wild animal." He illicited a questioning growl. A waver...obvious doubt, that immediate ego and self-esteem blew to gigantic proportions and stifled any uncertainty.  
  
A wild...animal? The infuriated roar formed a dim smile on the man's lined visage. Patches of masked figures darted through the rain, incoherent shouts stiffening Rufus' fur in natural reply to an invasion of territory.  
  
"Third class SOLDIERs. The most dispensable of the Shin-Ra army. At the most, they earn 20 gil per day, with no insurance or anything of the sort... or hope of compensation if they suffer an injury. They seem to have the poor end of the deal...but they all underwent Mako infusion. My colleague saw to that."  
  
If I may inquire...why_the HELL would I CARE about the WELFARE of 3rd class SOLDIERs? They mean NOTHING to me. Absolutely zero value. "Now hold your horses, Mister President. I have not finished." Then CONCLUDE_THIS_  
  
INSTANT. "To summarize, the most heavily infused---those ones over there-- they are now technically your masters-----" THAT'S ENOUGH!!! The older man wheezed at the blow to his stomach, and toppled the garbage can, debris and biotic creatures spilling into the street. Before Rufus could pounce and maul the offending tongue, a cry broke through the heavy rain and gunfire rattled into the stone wall. The instincts went haywire, practically throwing Rufus down behind, of all objects, a dumpster. As he leaned his feline skull against the wall, heavy breathing made heavier with the loudening splash of the SOLDIER's boots on the asphalt dense with potholes, he watched the older man get to his feet and slink away into the rain, shooting Rufus a glare that read, "You had your chance."  
  
The SOLDIERs walked nearer to the president's crude hiding place. He stared up. The gun's shadow stretched across the wall and receded as the SOLDIER pointed it the other way. A flashlight beam held by the other one scanned the decrepit asphalt. Rufus himself waited in one of the potholes... most likely a result of the billions that constructed the weaponry and the half-gil and quarter-gil leftovers that went to public works. Rufus locked his pointed teeth and repressed a roar of rage. To think that the very department I fund is about to kill me...the funder. The fools...! Can't they see the clothes? That alone is enough to distinguish myself from an animal!  
  
"Think it's gone?"  
  
That is...it SHOULD have been enough.  
  
"It isn't gone 'till its guts make some new grafitti." The flashlight fixated directly above the fur on Rufus' head. Perspiration began to flood his face. The heavy breathing grew into a fearful growl. The wide circle of light flitted across the stone wall, grazing the tail of his coat, black with the rain, blending into the night. "Can you believe it?! That's the fourth freak tonight! You got any more bullets for this one?"  
  
Instinct resolved his course. So, they didn't recognize their own president?  
  
That would be their own folly. With a low growl he raised himself to his feet, an imbued stealth leashing him...forcing him to wait..for the...perfect... time..to strike...  
  
Upon seeing the outline of the target the other SOLDIER froze and fired. A maddening click was all that the spent machine gun had to say. The cat pounced, hurling hismelf onto the SOLDIER with the flashlight, biting, tearing, in frenzied fear that he would be killed first, a primordial fear of pure instinct. He HEARD the click that signalled the weapon was empty, it remained shooting through his ears until the other SOLDIER's mangled carcass landed in the pothole, the weapon held in the corpse's lacerated hands. The other body, maimed, one of his arms hanging by a thread of muscle, slid out of Rufus' claws. For a moment he stood there, the Mako-swarmed blood dripping from its sharp ends. He stared at the dying human, strangely calm.  
  
Killing by your own hands was different than using the hired help, than keeping them clean in the pitiful effort to keep the conscience as unsullied.  
  
Their lives mean nothing. My conscience overlooks this incident. He began to walk from the site of the slaying, his burning eyes fixated on the narrow strrests that loomed ahead. The Black Rain coursed down the claws, washing away the blood that drained into the sewers. See? I am still Rufus Shin-Ra. The heightening rain washed the bodies from the alley. Two human lives. What would they mean to the animal now if they were worthless before? The value of their lives lessened from nothing to below nothing in the cat's eyes. A guilty conscience was free from the beginning.  
  
He strode across the decrepit concrete, unshaken by the death he so inhumanly caused.  
  
*~*~*  
  
TO BE CONTINUED......  
  
*~*~* A/N: Tune in next time when all hell breaks loose (again) when---you'll find out. -_^ 


	23. Redemption and Retribution

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana, title by La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
The busted clock that read a bizarre time contrary to the natural order of Gaia's rotation. That didn't come as any surprise...the clock was on its last legs when they took.....  
  
....him....  
  
The minute hand hit 3. A dying bird popped out of the clock and crowed the hour and fell silent. The baby started crying. A fuse blew. The lights flickered and shut off. Drops of tap water from the faucet added to its ever-deepening pool that came of a clogged sink.  
  
He could fix all this...  
  
The baby cried louder, the dog started barking, the blaring roar of whirling chopper blades blew away the few trees that dared to grow.  
  
Come back to me. She clenched at the folds of her worn apron, stained with food she used to cook for him. Goddamnit...the dog started to whine and the baby wailed louder. In some burst of blind rage, she yelled at the shrieking child,  
  
"Shut up!!!! Don't you know your brother's going to die?!!" she yelled in the dark, her face shading a livid violet. A whine and a thud as the dog flew across the room into the wall. She collapsed on the rotting chair, sobbing into her hands roughened and calloused by taking on her husband's job at the so-called Plate. "Goddamn inebriate!!" she drove a fist on her eyes and rubbed off the tears that plagued her nights more than ever now. The accident in the crib started to cry again.  
  
Official-sounding footfalls came from outside, the kind that marched in time, disciplined, taught to bear no regret.  
  
And the tread of another, light on the decaying sidewalk as the stalking predator.  
  
The woman angrily stuffed a pacifier into the kid's mouth and headed towards the door to answer the heavy knock on the door. It MUST be the Shin-Ra.... With her boy, it had to be..they told her, they would bring him back if they could save him..if everything went okay.....she unlocked the door and opened it a crack. The stern face of men garbed in a plain aqua stared at her from behind a mask. .She turned to the now silent baby and shouted with wild hope, "It's your brother!!"  
  
She slid the chain off the door and opened it, letting the SOLDIERs and another man in white, different from the man who she had talked to after the accident, after the car crash and the prognosis and everything, the man who would perform the procedure that would save her boy's life.....that man had been somewhat empathic, understanding, but not this one, obviously younger than the person she'd talked to before. This one looked sinister.. even cruel.....the kind that was tied to no one, thus cared for no one. Not even himself, judging from his tangle hair that fell about his narrow face.  
  
With his left hand he made an odd motion of pushing his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and began speaking.  
  
"I have news that will ease the anxiety that has undoubtedly been making your existence unbearable."  
  
"You're not Dr. Gast.....!"  
  
"No, I am not," he answered, somewhat irritated. "But that is completely unrelated to the matter at hand. Your son has survived the procedure..."  
  
"Where is he?! I have to see him....!!" she bubbled with ecstasy, running towards the baby she had silenced just moments earlier, her foul mood erased. She started for the door, escorted by one of the SOLDIERs. The man in white stopped her.  
  
"You may drop the child...I will hold onto it while you visit the patient.."  
  
The labcoated man held the infant with spidery fingers as he stared into the sapphire eyes of, unbeknowngst to him, his future superior.  
  
The family cat stalked out of the shadows and hissed at the child, that spat the pacifier from its mouth and cried again. The cat yowled and peered from the darkness, its nose quaking at the unfamiliar scent. The baby ceased to cry and brushed its fingers along the cat's nose. The cat bit him. The baby cried agian.  
  
"You are...hurt...by the very thing that you admire..." The dark eyes darkened. "Then you come to despise it....." They narrowed in a hate that churned within the bowels of his soul.  
  
...In any event, you would make an excellent feline...Now... what is taking them so long with...?" Gunfire exploded outside. A thud of a body crashing on the sidewalk. "....It was taking them long enough.." he started for the door. "Perhaps its body cannot handle the procedure quite yet..else it ends up as a failure like Zero-X...that was far too young of a subject......though.... Sephiroth was quite younger...indeed, he had entered the experiment before birth...and this infant's brother is far away from reaching maturity." He chuckled slowly as he opened the door to the dark house and walked past the SOLDIERs that dragged the mother's body into a bush. "Why does it give cause for debate? It is a known fact that children should develop an firsthand appreciation for science..."  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 23: Redemption and Retribution  
  
*~*~*  
  
A bloodstained dawn bloomed with feverish intensity that shone its coarse rays on the smoldering collection of brick, plaster, and corpses that wrapped around the smoking and charred remains of Gaia's underworld.  
  
Amongst the ruin that now blocked entry into Mt. Nibel, three shapes navigated through a misty haze that hovered in the thick air. They had gotten out while they still could, escaped the death-demon's teeth by a mere thousandth of a millimeter. They could only watch from a distance, paralyzed with the pinnacle of revulsion and imperceptible threads of an unguarded terror that the minute presence of which could only be unlocked by something such as this. And as the Turks and the scientist watched the unceasing carnage that shot shrieks and wails of the utmost despair through the sky clouded with endless death, Sebastian knew that the right hand of Hades had now been released.  
  
Or perhaps it WAS Hades himself...  
  
IT, not him.....IT was not man to begin with.  
  
Hell had gone on its bloody path and left its masterpiece to be consumed by decomposers that made life out of death, sending the rot to the sick land that absorbed the nutrients and produced thin layers of better soil that desperately attempted to survive through the reign of the Mako Reactors.  
  
Sebastian's razor-thin eyebrows knit in contemplation, that scouring the demolished town was a pointless venture. He doubted there were any survivors, and he presumed the thing's co-creator  
  
was destroyed first...there might not be anything of the body left to find. If the hellspawn wasn't moved to slaughter Elm elsewhere, he would still be in the basement. Still, some insatiable curiosity binding scientists of his breed prompted him to return.  
  
"Professor Elm?" Sebastian called, in more than a bit of digust. "Careless fool..." he shut his calculating eyes and frowned in disapprobation. "I_did warn you, didn't I? That what comes of placing a youth in charge of-----"  
  
Then he saw the corpse. "Oh.." He staggered away from the ripped limbs that clustered around the body, the head of which remained not even a fraction intact. "Mother of mercy....." he muttered, slipping backwards on the trail of extricated arteries and severed ligaments that lay in a pool of liquid Mako. He cautiously sidestepped it, his profaned eyes unable to shut out the defiled body. The Turks stood behind him, silent as the corpse that forever wrote itself in his memory with the ink of blood. "There are..no survivors," Sebastian factually stated with dropped composure, his pallid skin now a phantom white. He turned away from the grisly scene and walked past the immobile Turks into the swarm of ghostly mist that lingered at the sprawling grave, that encompassed beyond Nibelheim, forever silencing the howl of the wolves whose corpses littered the gore-soaked plains that obscured the frenzied prints made of those who had deserted the doomed town when they still could, before things got worse.  
  
They deserted it at nearly inhuman speeds, pushed on by the clinging terror that the two-headed freak still lurked behind them. They crossed the field where the light spat them out, now free of the rains that plagued them earlier, and they barged past their starting point unmindful that a big white hole was SUPPOSED to be there but it wasn't. Adrenaline and perhaps something else that lay buried beneath an unaltered phenotype that fooled the eyes into accepting a visible normalcy, at least for Jessie, pushed her on and on through the fields into the frowning canyons..and when she couldn't run a step further, she reached civilization.  
  
"Cosmo Canyon..?" she read the somewhat crude writing on the board that formed a crude semblance of an arch. "Ugh, welcome to the Stone Age is more like it." she scoffed, brushing past the man that stood in the arch. "Who would want to live in THIS dump?" and venturing in, the aroma of food drawing her towards the huge clay building--why CLAY?-- where people gaudily dressed in atrocious animal skins gathered around a bright fire on a stone slab slightly elevated from the ground. Jessie walked by them, still drawn by the smell of food, she gravitated towards the ugly clay building and the outrageously-dressed people holding a bowl of the most awful assortment of mush that smelled like heaven. An annoying little voice in her head asked if James and Meowth were alright, but at this moment, starved half to death and having just run God knows how long from the monster-infested freakhouse, she really didn't care.  
  
Or know.....that her partners were at this moment in the path of Chaos.  
  
"Still not dry..." James moaned, letting the damp material of his shirt bend to gravity. The still-wet shirt clung to his skin and radiated chills through his blood. It was scarcely warmer than the coffin room or the coffins themselves. Frustrated, he plopped himself onto a place where the already short grass began to thin out and patches of bare rock showed through, signalling an end to any hope of finding those awful half-eaten berries that Meowth was earlier shovelling in his mouth.  
  
"Meowth, we've been in the middle of nowhere for hours and I can't see signs of intelligent life anywhere...!"  
  
"'Dat's cause yah only seein' yahself, Jimmy-boy," Meowth groaned, curled against Persian's side, about the only thing that was remotely warm--everything else was as cold as the coffin room. "We saw plenty 'a intelligent life---" Meowth laughed half-nervously and half with a crawling terror of what hopefully they were very, very far away from. He looked into the morning shadows and turned his oval-shaped head towards James and confirmed with his paws folded over on his furred chest, "---dey just ain't human! Ya know, dat's prob'ly why we can't find..." The small cat suddenly shivered, "...da boss nowheres. I bet dis charm-" He tapped the now scratched and dirty object with a paw, "--dat da freaky needle guy caught 'im and's gonna use 'im in experiments---" The larger cat yowled fearfully, shaking its head back and forth in protest, leaning its head in between its paws that were beginning to grow some of the fur it lost. Meowth sat one paw on Persian's side and motioned with other, "Sorry pal, but dat's da truth." He leaned against the body, now shuddering considerably, and closed his eyes with semi-haughtiness, inflating pride with his inhumanity. " Ya see...if youse humans didn't think yahselves so high up dere dere wouldn't be no difference between you an' me."  
  
Out of nowhere, on a whim out of thin air, Meowth sat up and looked at James with his wide blue eyes, not conniving and scheming as they usually narrowed at a target. This carried a pure air, almost of a child asking a bizzare question, cataclysmic in what it meant but with no mailintent, something Meowth usually embraced..  
  
"Wouldn't dat be a great woyld, no humans and all Pokémon?"  
  
At first James started to laugh out loud, getting Meowth's glare on him but oblivious. The idea seemed so preposterous, so far-flung he pointed a finger at the cat and asked, through bursts of uncontrolled laughter,  
  
"Where did you get such a notion, Meowth?...! I can't believe your head is so far in the clouds, to think that Pokémon would ever...." The laughing minimized to a nervous chuckle that abated as James thought of the boss. In one night the HQ was destroyed. Somewhere in the very back of his mind he culdn't help thinking that might not be the first time. But the point was, a human ceased to be human.  
  
He shuddered. What WOULD that be like? He could almost imagine it...he shivered even more and buried his chin on huddled knees. Why did Meowth have to get philosophical right NOW? That oversized mouth, spouting out everything in his cat brain..sometimes he wished they had a regular Meowth that didn't occasionally ask thought-intensive questions that made his brain hurt.  
  
On second thought.....  
  
He pressed a gloved finger on his cheek thoughtfully and spoke aloud,  
  
"I wonder what it would be like if Jessie was a Flareon? Or if I were a....." He started to say something, but the very thought depressed him...stupid Botch and Cassidy's fake fortune telling book...He let out a wistful sigh. Then the REAL book said he was a..it was too shameful to say aloud. Not long after he re-assmed a skeptical attitude about the whole thing of fate and destiny.  
  
"Speaking of Jessie, where is she? Eeeep..." James whimpered as he stood up from the ground, his hand on the ice-cold PokéBall that held his still-frozen Victreebel. It wasn't warm enough so he could un-freeze it...and he certainly wouldn't let Jessie smash the ice block that encased it to free it, him having a much softer spot for Pokémon than she did.  
  
James gave a wistful sigh as he lamented the weather. If there was only some sun...and not that unfriendly black raincloud moving across the sky.  
  
He started to walk, Meowth's screechy yell clearly indicating he didn't want to be left behind...especially with all those freaks running around. Persian slowly trailed, its paws quietly forming tracks in the dirt. It raised its nose to the air to catch a strange smell.  
  
Not the master, it forlornly meowed, following James and Meowth with lowered shoulders that ached as they moved, It had walked a long way..perhaps longer than it ever had in its life where it had been spoiled to dirt, where the farthest it had to walk was across its master's office to drink from the bowl of milk it guarded jealously, not now, where it had to summon what was left of its animal endurance and walk for miles. How much it wanted to curl up on the ground and sleep..it wasn't the master's bed...but it hungered for sleep....yet a greatly blunted instinct whispered in a feeble voice, "Don't stop."  
  
The feline complied. Its scraped paws fell on the thinning grass as it trailed behind the rest, unaware of how close it escaped death.  
  
Chaos swept through the clearing without warning, its vicious claws stained in rings of human blood flashing in the early dawn star obscured by its demon form. Its wings fell and rose, partially curled around its body, a bat prepared to take flight for its nightly feed, waves of air currents melding with its monstrous breathing and its unearthly growl. Blood dripped from the fangs that rose and fell with each gravelly breath that poured the odor of fresh death into the unpoisoned air. Bare hatred spilled out of its eyes that burned with the white light in the distance. With a roar that reverberated among the cliffs and canyons it hovered above, the winged demon shot at the white ball of energy, only to careen straight through it.  
  
Silence reigned the mist-heavy morning.  
  
*~*~*.  
  
The TV still blared even if there was no audience to watch it.  
  
"---if you call now, you'll get a free extra FOUR slots with 2 monthly payments of 1300 gil---"  
  
The image of the bouncy salesman making outrageous hand gestures in front of the Shin-Ra/Silph logo abruptly ended with a white bar of light that sliced the black-grey screen as Mrs. Ketchum hit the "off" button. With an exasperated sigh she picked up Ash's leftover dishes and walked to the kitchen.  
  
She seemed more worried about him than his chronic irresponsibility. "Where did he go in such a hurry with that broken leg?" A clatter of a spoon and chopsticks hit the sink and rolled into the drain. Delia placed her hands on her hips and stared at the door, slightly ajar. "He knows he's not supposed to be walking around..!" She marched towards the source of howling wind, pulling the knob and pushing her head out, getting a headful of rain and the furious roar of the maelstrom threatening to shove her back inside the house.  
  
"Ash..!! Ash!! Young man, you come back here this instant..!" she called in a tone marked by worry...perhaps fear. With that...thing she wouldn't even CALL a Pokémon running around, and this heavy rain which he could catch cold in, and the wind that raged a furious god,..it wasn't safe outside. She pulled her head back in, covered with her reddish-brown hair in piles of disarray, and closed the door. He HAD gone out..that much was obvious from the muddy footprints that led to the door from the yellow-upholstered couch. She scanned the floor disdainfully, partially covered with chairs that had been knocked over in haste. The whole HOUSE was a mess, what with those people that promised to guard it. But they were gone, too..she was the only one in the house, save for Mimie who hadn't been sleeping too well. For that matter, she hadn't, either.  
  
She started to walk upstairs. On the second step she froze at the scuffling and scraping on the door outside. She eased back down the steps, walking towards the door wondering who would scratch at the door instead of knock. Perhaps a Growlithe from the next-door neighbor? Maybe someone who could explain that tremendous crash that woke her up that morning?  
  
She opened the door and wasn't prepared for what stood in the doorway. WHAT..because it was a monster. It almost..ALMOST....looked like a Pokémon, but she didn't keep the door open long enough to confirm whether it was true or not. With a terrified yell she slammed the door and bolted it.  
  
What terrified her even more was that she thought she recognized who it was...as a person she knew.  
  
"Sshghhhrrrrraaurrr......" It growled, scraping at the wood. What was happening? Why didn't she let him in? "Shhghhraaaurrr!!" it growled again, sliding up the door on its stumpy front legs and scratching again, letting out a whine as the arms started to hurt..like his bones didn't fit together or something and it was always grinding on his skin colored green and yellow and brown. He could see it 'cause the budding flower that grew on its back sparked with an orb of electricity that shot voltage through his back. It hurt...he didn't know why it hurt...it wasn't meant to hurt..... Pokémon weren't meant to feel pain, were they? They couldn't.. he knew......he remembered that time he took the recipe for seeing through a Pokémon's eyes..  
  
It was Pikachu.  
  
That memory stung his eyes with forming tears. In something closer to agony he took his legs off the door and nursed his sorrow with a growl. "Shgghraaaaaurrrr...--Rrr... Prrgheeeekrrarggghh--!!" Not that it helped him one bit. What was the worth of remembering it when he couldn't even SAY the name of his Pokémon...his best friend?..! Why say it at all? He tried again and it came out garbled. "Kraaarrghhhhh!!!"  
  
That time when he turned into a Pikachu for a brief time..... Then that was something else. Then he could actually TALK. His mom might get worried a bit, but she would let him in. She wouldn't lock him out, think he was a...  
  
A monster? People called him a lot of things...twerp, brat, loser, dumb, stupid, but never monster.  
  
Those days were over.  
  
It wouldn't hurt as bad if it wasn't his MOM that thought he was a...  
  
"Prghhheee..kraaghhhhh...shhgghhhraaauurrrhh!!!" he cried, now pounding on the door, squeaking and growling at the top of his lungs that hurt with the electricity shooting through it. Too.. much...every pulse induced a Thunderbolt that shocked his insides over and over and over...  
  
The door opened, but not wide enough to let the mutant in. It cried and whined, shoving its head through the small space in the door that a fearful eye peered through.  
  
The chemicals were strong.  
  
"I don't..believe it..."  
  
The fear remained but dulled next to an uncertain realization drove by a parental instinct.  
  
The genetic rearrangement had carried through one-hundred percent.  
  
"....Ash.....?.....?"  
  
Moments before it threatened to break a familial bond. And now it stretched infinitely, held together only by a slim thread of hope that this was still her boy. But even as she held the creature with Pikachu ears and the face of what she guessed might be an Ivysaur, so many were its deformities, next to her in distant realization, the shadow of doubt entered her mind.  
  
Did she only want this to be Ash?  
  
She squeezed the thing to her chest, small jolts of electricity sparking through her skin as she laid her hands on the rough, overlapping scales that cut her fingers, drawing pain in its red form that leaked from the skin.  
  
If it was.....what right..had she to doubt it? What right had she to even think of abandoning him when she already knew what that was like...to one day wake up and find everything changed.  
  
He left all of a sudden...left her with all the bills and her son and the broken heart that never really mended behind a facade of enduring cheerfulness.  
  
She closed the door and buried reluctance and apprehension, bringing her son out of the cold rain, trying to forget that there now was a gorge between them that neither mother nor son could ever truly bridge.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Shouldn'tve drank, Brock beat himself in his brain while Misty gripped him tightly by the arms. The white blood took its own vengeance and burned at his heart, the black muscle about to be burst by the gleaming point of the lizard's horn. The Ninetales/Zubat and the Politoed surrounded it on either side, death tripled charging towards Brock, ground shaking and mud flying beneath Zero-X's massive claws.  
  
Gemini chained the dread and fear flooding his scarred features that were supposed to forbid any human emotion. Well guess what, Ivy? he hissed, the primal sound edged with defiant bitterness. You failed. I'm scared. A mangled inhale ripped through his scarred chest as he heard the roaring bellow. Zero-X came at him like a tank, a slow tank, but a tank out-of-control and broken controls. And with...Mis...with the Gyarados with a steel grip on his arms, and now around his neck because he was struggling too much, there was no hope...  
  
Except within utter Disorder.  
  
A flash of light from behind tore at the lizard's eyes and it lost balance, plowing sidelong into the mud, a giant wave of earth leaping into the rain and tumbling to the earth again, splattering liquid soil rendering him sightless. A winged form exploded from the white light and torpedoed through the bat/fox and the frog, a mangled whine and bellow chopping through the night. The bleeding bodies landed somewhere, limp from the impact. Holy..Jesus...Brock struggled even more desperately now, watching as the fanged storm struck the giant mound of mud-drenched hide, a  
  
sea of black blood spurting from a titanic wound and a scream of the same volume wrenched from its throat.  
  
If he knew how to count, he was next.  
  
Brock jerked his head back with imploring eyes, feeling the sting of the white light that crawled into his retinas. Not so far away he heard the ripping and tearing of a massive hide and the agonized roar that followed each gaping wound the winged demon tore. A sudden jump in temperature..a weakened flamethrower shot through the mud. Its answer broiled the air. Brock sweat cold blood in the heat. He braced for an impact that might smash his body into pieces. Just thinking about how bad the flying demon would tear him up..tear MISTY up..his heartbeat quickened, his mind focused on that one fear, and as he heard the tearing and crunching sounds of one-sided struggle, Brock didn't react to the jagged ache as a crimson light spilled out of his throbbing head and encased him and the Gyarados that gripped him with solid grasp.  
  
The lacerated body of Zero-X fell into the tremendous sea of mud and there was a loud flap of wings and a body shooting through a column of air, and that's all Brock heard before he heard the snap of his bones as the monster flew directly into his chest. Gyarados howled awakened agony as the impact launched them into the earth. The demon hovered over the twitching bodies and spread its wings, casting the shadow of doom on the lesser demon whose transient energy shield dissipated...  
  
When the toneless voice of a human stayed the fire storm.  
  
"Stop."  
  
Chaos reared its despicable head, a chunk of lizard meat hanging from between its fangs black with the blood. It sensed itself locked inside of the human that stood on the hill of muck, the dog next to him backing away, sensing something as well. The way Vincent stood there.....rigid as ever.. the calm before the storm. He knew it...then hell snapped its chains and there would no longer be Vincent, but a berserk creature that could only be imagined in the sickest and sadistic of minds. The slow trot became something like a mad dash to safety as Vincent held a fist on his chest as his breathing grew more rapid, grew less controlled, the leftovers of the constant struggle with his soul that he had long ago lost.  
  
He allowed an impassioned rage dead and buried to engulf his very being, to devour his nonexistent soul, to take everything but his mind, to give himself wholly and completely to a monster that he once had no control over. Even now..it was difficult to master the demon that was designed to dominate him.. The red eyes churned with eons of hate he spent years of his abysmal life to channel emotions, actions, decisions through his intent and not Chaos'. Wings burst through his back that stood rigid through the transformation, no longer affected by the pain, the unnatural feeling that it brought having ceased to torment his mind.  
  
I shall free the soul you infested, Chaos. An ear-bleeding roar erupted from the demon that rose above the other, its eyes burning in leashed fury.  
  
Do you want to kill? Chaos unfolded its arms and let them drop. Come. Destroy me. The other Chaos shot towards the other demon and was as easily arrested with a blow that tore one eye out, blinding it halfway with the torn remnants of the fluid that crawled into the wound that opened its face down to the lower jaw. The Chaos that Vincent assumed then lunged, a tornado of fire and fang, merciless, unforgiving, and brutal. Blood rain mixed with Black Rain as Vincent's Chaos struck the second, attacking with unimaginable fury, tearing it to literal shreds that rained with the rain, splattering lifeless on the earth.  
  
The other Chaos reverted to the laconic man that dropped bloodless while standing in mid-air. He landed almost silently, imperceptible breathing floating through his lungs that so recently had been demonic. A bark shot sharply behind him as Red ran through the sludge again, shaking his drenched coat and emitting a questioning growl at the assorted jumble of oozing body parts.  
  
"What IS that?"  
  
"Not what..." Vincent intoned, approaching the mauled pieces of this other Chaos that unreadily reformed into a twisting mass of reshaping hide that released a final growl as the demon reverted to its host. "Who....I shall soon see whose Chaos this.." The wings and fangs and claws vanished, leaving the disarming sight of a man shrouded in a vermillion cape buried in the mud. "...was." Vincent tilted his chin downards, tangled hair whipping across his red eyes that narrowed. Now his senses were unobstructed. And there was no doubt as to the identity of the masquerader.  
  
"He wishes to make a mockery of my plight. To castigate me further."  
  
Red eyes partially hidden with a coarse headband his tormentors laced around his head to complete a haunting reflection of a soured justice gazed up at the cadaverous man, his waxen lips parting and exposing his own vampiric fangs. He clutched at the saturated air with trembing fingers, his face contorting as he felt his brain sending unfamiliar signals, as he stared into the one eye of.....another specimen. The ferocious one. The one he had considered breeding with the Cetra...  
  
His warping eyes, one of which began to deteriorate and melt like solids when they were exposed to extreme temperatures, bore into his creation's. "You are...wrong, Valentine." He outstretched Vincent's brass claw that gradually began to vanish and reform as his melting features gazed upon the inhuman limb and as the corners of his mouth dropped into the reshaping mass of flesh and bone, "I am the one being punished....."  
  
Memories that weren't his, that were of another's, poured into his brain. He crawled on Vincent's melting form, mud, blood, and rain dripping down his neck. They began to fluctuate, to go this way and that way, until Valentine's memories vanished altogether, and those implanted images, those transplanted tribulations of...Red XIII devoured his brain."..Your birthname was Nanaki..." The skin grew red fur that engulfed the body. "..your species was charged with protecting your tribe..." An animal limb sprouted from the shoulder where the claw had vanished. "....it was difficult..you lost your vision in one eye.." The whites of the eyes yellowed. "..you fought countless battles...then the humans came...they dragged you..." The snout protruded from a head taking on wolfish features. "...me.." The tangled nest of hair the shade of a crow lightened to a ruddy red-brown that were the beginnings of a lion's mane. "..away....from the tribe..the canyon.....stop!!" The voice once again changed, gaining some degree of refinement that Valentine didn't have. A tail burst from his flank as Hojo bounded with the youth of the creature he now assumed the form of the dog, swimming in mire."...I have to protect...them...from..the..Gi......" An anguished howl sprang from the animal's throat which died promptly as he saw his..test subjects staring at Red through the falling rain. Without the feather, bangles, scars, or tattoo, but otherwise a flawless replication of the wolf/lion down to the very last strand of DNA. And Hojo knew it. Knew it and loathed it. The red fur bristled as he blinked both eyes and growled belligerently. He shirked away from the eyes of scrutiny, snarled at them.."Why...why are you looking at me that way?" He short of demanded, with lionlike teeth clenched in set jaws. Hostility unshrouded with any sort of subtlety freed itself as he snapped his jaws, his dry tongue sweeping the Black Rain off his nose that felt uncomfortably sensitive. After a few moments of silence he advanced, fur dripping with the liquid compounds. The facial muscles of this new form, at the very least, it offered him the freedom to scowl.  
  
"I suppose you can laugh now, hm?" he inquired, bringing his back leg up to his neck and scratching at a microscopic organism that made him squirm. " Your own 'justice'---" He suddenly snapped at the site of irritation with his jaws, his hind leg still planted to his side. "---has been fulfilled?" The parasite finally migrated to another part of his body. Overcome with frustration, he threw himself on the sopping mud, the liquid soaking into his fur and drowning the source of the itch. He stood up on his haunches, shaking the muddy fur in the manner of dogs and other mammals, and sneered at his labrats, his mannerisms, whether it was a side-effect of the procedure or if it was a conscious decision, made him seem less human than they were. "That is an ill-chosen word.....for that would insinuate that I have committed some offense, some crime....." he growled defensively as his specimens simply stood there, one bewildered, the other unmoved. "That is where you are wrong....it was to preserve an endangered species...a purely conservational effort.."  
  
The dog, having had enough of his captor's self-righteousness and justifications, walked towards him, carrying himself with almost noble grace and a quiet bitterness.  
  
"That's all well and good, Hojo, but..." Red pulled his foreleg out of the mud. A brief flash of lightning illuminated the thin lines of the black tattoo. "That wasn't necessary."  
  
"'Wasn't..necessary..?" echoed the exact same voice with no differences except for the mind and the will that constructed the words. "It was an indispensable necessity, Red XIII," he protested with a rational tone. "For purposes of identification....."  
  
"Identification?" Red asked, standing the same height as the enemy, but in some strange way, exceeding him. "I told you my name. My name is Nanaki. You said it yourself---" His head rolled back and he squinted. The silver flash. The dragon. Cid. "Wait, that's--" Nanaki howled into the pressing storm as he ran past Hojo, reminded of an urgent situation that had brought them here to begin with. Vincent began to follow, then stopped at the vitriolic growl. He faced his tormentor, the scarlet cape that hung around his shoulders blending with the ebony liquid as he approached this animal far more a monster than his specimen.  
  
"I do not believe you know the extent of the damage you have engendered.." A brief pause that brandished a knife meant to plunge into the soul. "...Edward Valentine."  
  
A hastily-buried container of radioactive strontium leaked from the depths of unravelling emotions. He spun on all fours and growled, barked, the true ferocity in the form of the ferocious specimen magnifying all the more the appearance of unfettered resent. "Do..NOT..call me that.....we broke all contact after mother's funeral, do you remember? Ah...of course not..the only thing you can remember are your nightmares..."  
  
"'What significance do they have when compared to all else? It is trivial,'" Vincent listlessly mimicked, an action that pushed Hojo over his limit. Had not he DESTROYED anything resembling a sense for wit and satiric humor when he destroyed HIM? Apparently not. He snarled and lunged, fur flying as the brass claw emotionlessly raked against his face. The dog fell into the growing mess, even in a different FORM, his hateful sibling turning the table of irony onto him and crushing a certainty of vengeful victory that now seemed insubstantial. And all he could do to offer a pitiful retaliation, whimper and rub at the stinging wound with the red paw. He growled menacingly, foaming at the mouth. Vincent stayed him with the the toe of the brass boot, pressing lightly on his ribs with the taunting metal, with enough pressure to make a whine that was small payback from the times Hojo had made his own kin scream in agony...  
  
Perhaps I deserved it. It was retaliation for the spiders, for father disowning him....  
  
The whine grew to a sharp howl as he rubbed the point of the brass in Hojo's ribs. He had taken his revenge doubly, triply on him. What sadistic need did he have to make the whole world his laboratory?  
  
Despite all his sins, Vincent's words burned with a condemning justice. "Feel the rage, Edward. Feel the agony of the millions you have destroyed." He disappeared into the unrelenting wall. "Now it is you who will be sacrificed to the god of revenge. Fare well."  
  
Hojo slipped on the mud as he vapidly stood on his filth-layered limbs, and winced at the spot his infinitely generous brother had practically kicked, noting that was also the location where the flea had been not minutes earlier. It became a lesser source of agitation, however, ruminating on the phrase Valentine had left him with that reminded him of the reality of this.."castigation."  
  
"Feel their 'agony'?" he inquired with a rapidly-dropping surety. "That must have been what that...Elm character had hoped to accomplish in this hideous mockery of science......make me feel the pain I have inflicted on my subjects.." A low whine came from him in those massive implications. "If that is correct.....Two down...only a minor...." His voice slowed as the awareness of a grim truth entrapped him. ...."...fifty-six million, five-hundred seventy thousand, three-hundred thirty-two and twenty-seven tenths.....to.....go.."  
  
Here came number three.  
  
A clawed hand burst out from the wall and grasped at his throat. He yelped and fell on his back, twisting and turning as eyes of hell burned into his skull.The claws drew blood from his neck, the blood of Red XIII, unaltered, useless, normal blood that now threatened to burst from his throat, the steel hold inescapable and without mercy.  
  
"Gemini...?!" he gasped hoarsely, his hind paws scraping along the clinging piles of earth that were now all but wedged in them.  
  
The demon slammed one hand, covered in a slew of scars that would have been mortal wounds had it not been a combination of the rain that fell harder than ever and his own, debilitating psychic power, on the dog's forehead and withdrew the other claw to expose the throat. His mind craved for a meal he wouldn't regret, that wouldn't compound guilt and anguish in his ruptured soul.  
  
There would be no remorse for this one.  
  
"GHRGHHI HGHHREARRGHD THRGHE GHWHORGHE THRRINGHRGH....." One of the claws sank into the flesh and traced a slit from the base of the throat to the animal's lower jaw.. those small wounds that hurt the most, that are barely visible but they sting....like hell, to put it bluntly. Perhaps a mere fraction of the agony that Gemini wanted to burn into this bastard's smoking corpse.  
  
You killed Suzie and made me drink her blood. Now I'll kill you the exact same way.  
  
He pressed his lips to the wound and drank the red blood as Hojo writhed, the blood draining from his system, making him weak, the robust red color in his face paling. He snapped wildly with his jaws, ineffectual squirming only hastening the drainage for Gemini had no mercy. Hojo panted in an a lethargy that spread to every sinew of Red...Nanaki's..body, his tongue protrudging between separated teeth. "That is.....utter...nonsense..Gemini...it was your basic nature as a vampiric lifeform..I merely..provided a catalyst....."  
  
No. You MURDERED her, that's what you did. I don't want any of your self-serving excuses. By the way, my name is BROCK, not Gemini.  
  
"Brock...yes....that was the human name given to you after....." The body went limp, the blood still in his body trickling down the side of his neck in scant streams as his head rolled backwards. A head that held a skull that held a brain that was again recieving foreign signals that merged with Nanaki's memories and gradually began to convert it to solely the memories of yet another.....  
  
"HHGRHRAGGHFFGHTERGJH.....HGHHRARRGHFGHTERGHH WRRGAAGHHT?" the scaled demon roared in desperate fury. What DID he know about...Grabbing at the withered throat, he shook the almost-corpse in wild fury, rattling the near-emptied blood vessels.  
  
Brock threw him down hard enough to kill him and roared in the sullen eyes, the soul within plagued with an emerging disease. "SGGHRAGHEE SHHGHROMETHRRINGHH......!!!!"  
  
"....you...bitch...DON'T..touch me..." the faint voice growled. Brock growled as well, suddenly startled, backing away from the dog, his devil-shaped tail twitching with the unending rythym of the tumbling chemicals. The dog's nearly-drained body shuddered, some power razing the would-be victim of the demon fangs whose red form was visible as his mouth dropped half-open from an uneasy astonishment."Leave.....me..ALONE....stop...you're not going to cut me open...NO.. STOP...it..." The red beast howled in Brock's ears as the fur began to warp again, scales growing in place of the fur, black as the rain that fell to the point he could barely see the twisting outline, that rolled on the drowned ground in tormented agony, of Brock's own memories assaulting what used to be a scientist from every imaginable angle, these memories following sickly in time with the physical transformation that was as torturous as his own.  
  
But he felt no pity. Maybe it was because this was still Hojo, still the bastard that killed Suzie. That doubled the anguish that lashed at his soul..Suzie's murderer now a taunting reflection of him....the nauseating sensation made his skin pale to a greyish hue as he watched the scientist rise on his deformed claws, peering at him with his crimson eyes, covering his head in his shame and loathing that had..... HIS..HAIR..ON..IT..  
  
That's...MY hair, Brock let out a growl of anguished bitterness. You took EVERYTHING. My clothes...my hair..my friend...my name...my FREEDOM...  
  
"Frghheerghdroghhm?" Hojo repeated, oblivious to the fact that he was hardly coherent, that it was but a series of grunts and growls that barely formed intelligible words. "Yrhhgrough ghharrghh ghragh shhrghpeshhghimegghn..whghroghse ghronghrree prrurghpoghse ghhrrisgh frogh shhrghienntifghrik rrghhheshharrcghh."  
  
No...no...scientific RESEARCH, not that..incomprehensible... ..primal communication...! A roar of disbelieving agony aimed at the silent dead rent the sound of the torrential flood. "HUUUOAOOARGHHHH!!!!!!" What have you....done to me...?!  
  
Whoever did this to you deserves a medal. If I could still hold things without BREAKING them APART---he raised his muscled arm and squeezed his fist so hard that the very atoms in the handful of rain threatened to break apart in fission-----I'd hand it to him myself.  
  
A weak growl made his boiling thoughts turn to the beast behind him, plodding with her body half-bent, weakened from Chaos' blow that had totally destroyed the white light in her eyes. Brock turned partially away from his nemesis, and the gruff tone softened if only in intention and meaning and not its nature.  
  
"MRGGGHHESSSTIE?" The newly created Gyarados said nothing, and could only manage the desolate growl of someone lost, suddenly taken from the unfamiliar and the known and banishing her from that realm. The white glow in her eyes void of iris and pupil was gone. Mindless obedience ousted by shock that reached the very core of her heart.  
  
Brock...I'm a Gyarados, aren't I?  
  
He nodded flatly with eyes that closed for a long moment, shrouding him with darkness, the crimson light solely visible in this stage of the deluge. That and the two fangs reddened with blood, all else engulfed in shadow. Brock's thoughts burned through his guilt-ridden mind. Loathing broke out in what had earlier been nerves unyoked by the burden of being responsible....he'd heaped it all on Angelon, but if he hadn't listened to to him in the FIRST place...  
  
But he didn't have a choice. Angelon threatened Misty with death. He killed her anyway. With the help of his enemies. . The points of his fangs drilled into jet-black gums and he hissed in enraged remorse. Yeah, you are a Gyarados, Misty. There's no going back. The mental speech flooding her mind paralyzed her. There was nothing she could think..or do. But I'll avenge you, Misty. I swear to God. His blood pupils gored into Hojo's deformed body. Don't think you're off the hook, science guy. You're lucky I've got another score to even with my "master."  
  
He hissed with unpent vehemence and glided past Hojo on rapid claws, deadly silent as the hairless outline of what used to be a young man, a boy, dashed across the enveloping mud to where the recovering bodies of Team Rocket groaned in indisputable defeat. So immersed in the trauma that they didn't hear the lethal silence that darted across the nothingness.  
  
*~*~*  
  
"Humans have so many limits."  
  
Draconis Rex's scaly lip curled in disgust at the partially human hand attatched to a partially human arm connected to a partially human torso..."If you were not covered with scales...I would rip you off," he growled at the hand. sinking the claws into the other one in bitter contempt at the sign of humanity he absolutely despised. To make it worse, the gold blood barely wept three drops before the rain made it clot and close the self-inflicted wound. He began to laugh, but this time it was edged with pure bitterness, and not a threatening triumph imbued with the cruelty of his hateful nature. About the only consolation that kept his features as tranquil as they could get was that the dark rain didn't take away the scars he had gouged out on these despicable hands, depriving them of any human "perfection" those clothed apes claimed to have.  
  
And speaking of the brutes...Draconis Rex slowed his flight, the constant din of his wings growing frequent as he kept Cid's body stationary in midair, the clouds pouring their tribulations through the drawn-out rythym.  
  
How he could FOOL them...which had been child's play..wallowing in that victory was enough to lessen his revulsion at this human form, and his sides shook with unrestrained laughter, the laughter that . the anguished human side had come to hate, even to dread, and he retaliated with a vengeance. He emerged with cyclonic rage in his eyes as he balled his fist and socked he and the dragon in the lower jaw, oblivious to the blow he struck his own chin with as whatever pain the injury could produce sank in a roar as aggressive and belligerent as the dragon's, and to all outside ears, the same.  
  
"What in all FUCK is such a riot?!! It's ENOUGH they're after me 'cause of you, but now you gotta go on and shoot Gothman and piss off nature boy with all that lyin' shit, and you think it's funny?!?" The humanoid dragon's bushy eyebrows furrowed on the tops of his eyes, the face lessening in fury as the other side took control.  
  
"You're twisting things around, making it look like it was all_my fault," he growled, the face warping from one of rage to one of explication. " Those humans are neanderthals, Highwind. And that dog never grew up from a kitten. They're dull as Behemoths and twice as slow. You can't heap all the blame on me." It returned to fury again. "Ya think I can't? I'm head-high in shit right now and frankly, Drac---" A smirk cut through the face as it found a spear with a better blade.. Having only one body to lose had its advantages...maybe this could wake the prick up. "---you ain't dry either if Gothman gets it in his head to make it rain blood.."  
  
The humanoid figure arrested flight in mid-air, a roar of wind crashing over it as it plunged fifty feet before a silver flash diced the darkness and it rode a downdraft. And all through it the dragon answered with an awkward silence. "Looks like ya finally HEARD me, Drac," Cid growled with mordant contempt, the sharpened teeth scraping against human teeth tar-encrusted and craving for something to rot them more. "It's about fuckin' time." An amused halt in the exchange of blazing words. "Me? Listen to you?" the dragon sneered in Cid's own voice, diving for a rapid current of air and breaking into swift glide. "There's more than one way to defeat a foe, Highwind. If Chaos wants to seek...." The sky roared as the dragon-man catapulted across the obscured horizon. "..I will hide."  
  
*~*~*  
  
When dawn arrived, no one knew it. It was only by their wristwatches and alarm clocks or the vague feeling that they should get up that they knew it was morning. Raining hard as it was last inght. Honey, it's a workday. A groan. One finally rolls out of bed, bringing the bedcovers with him. They drop off his shoulders, and he vapidly shuffles to the bathroom. The door slams. Clothes are shed. The shower curtain runs across the pole caked in mildew and other grime. A few minutes later the shower runs. The water is heavy. A loud noise, probably the faucet knob yanked from the wall. Call the repair man when he gets out. The husband breaks into a burst of shouting punctuated by curses the other never thought he knew. It is a confused yell...he's hurting himself in his confusion. There goes the towel rack. The toilet cracked open. What was confused yelling becomes a savage, wild sound. Pretty soon there is a hole in the door in the shape of what might be a Donphan, but it's much too hard to tell.  
  
Then the kid walks in the parent's room and says there's something wrong with the water. But she doesn't say it, she snarls it, and that's not your daughter crashing into your room.  
  
They try to ignore it. Everyone eats their own rushed breakfast, but the table's cracked and the food is spilled, the kitchen's a mess, the baby is crying, there's another door next to the old one, letting the dark water pour in from outside. She opens the original door to try and make sense of this and sees roughly 4,000 Pokémon crowding the streets, howling, screaming, some who still have their voices yell something but it's drowned in the bestial noise. Somewhere in the crowd there's a deteriorating squad car on which Officer Jenny is shouting instructions.  
  
"OKAY...HERE'S THE DEAL! YOU'LL ALL BE CAPTURED AND TAKEN TO THE POKéMON CENTER UNTIL SOMEONE CLAIMS YOU. ANY..." There is a hesitant pause. There's a grimace on her face. It's clear that she's unsure what to address them as. "..ONE..." She forces the syllable out of her lips. It is barely heard. No one gives a skewered Raticate. ".....WHO RESISTS CAPTURE WILL BE ARRESTED. ANYONE WHO ATTEMPTS TO START A RIOT WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT, AM I CLEAR?!"  
  
"Officer, pardon me, but I don't think this is the right way to go about this..."  
  
She puts down the bullhorn and asks with an authorative air that her position and the state of the city warranted without dispute.  
  
"Would you rather have us call the Shin-Ra boys in and have a citywide massacre? This IS the most humane way of dealing with it. Besides, I don't want another Viridian or Pewter. One of these Pokémon may go berserk and THEN who will we have to blame?" A compliant but grudging silence, then Jenny's voice through the megaphone. "FIRE THE BALL CANNON."  
  
So begins the reign of calamity.  
  
An explosion of sound broke through the street as an unbroken stream of PokéBalls shot from the mouth of a long barrel etched with the Shin-Ra/Silph logo, smacking into a random target and drawing them in. That, against Jenny's futile hopes, initiated a panic. The herd of mutated Pokémon scrambled to exit the city, to get away from the PokéBalls that shot at full force, crimson patches of light appearing and disappearing as the creatures submit to the spherical prisons. A chaotic roar carried through downtown, growing louder and stronger as the monsters packed next to them disappeared. A few burst out of their PokéBalls, and soon not only flashes of red and white careened through the air, but gold and black, blue and green, white, black, blue and red, and purple. Like so many of Shin-Ra/Silph's new innovations, they were programmed to perform its job efficiently and without defect. It was truly like nothing any of them..not the humans nor the mutations, had ever seen before. The user would merely have to aim. The built-in computer would run Sense on the target, pinpoint its type, and signal the cannon to fire the corresponding ball.  
  
The mass-produced Master Ball it reserved for the deadliest-looking ones, the ones that looked most likely to kill, the ones that had Dark, Rock, Fire, or Poison properties. Which were quite a lot. The mass of violet and grey formed walls at a time, closing on the Pokémon.....which they really weren't. They were gruesome enhancements......mutants, undeserving of a fair chance to escape like in regular Pokémon battles. But this was no battle. There were no fair chances. Not even for the ones that were barely bestial, that still could talk, no impediments to clear speech whatsoever. They were taken down like the rest, for there was no distinction between bi and quadruped, hair or fur, gender and no gender, because in the end, all of them were freaks.  
  
For their own good. If Pres Shin-Ra gets wind of this, he'll send Lightning American and Shin-Ra troops. They'll tear the place down just like Viridian and Pewter. Blood everywhere. I won't let it happen. If anyone's going to go easy on these freaks, it's the VPD, not those corporate Piloswine.  
  
Four to three-thousand, two to one-thousand. By then the time on the watches belonging to the handful of humans advanced three hours. Some stood agitated, upset that the road wouldn't clear, others cowered behind buildings where they were hit with the horrifying shock of a fleeing freak crawling up their knee as blasts of scarlet light engulfed a row of them clawing through the curb.  
  
By this time the squad car was reduced to a hulk of scrap and Jenny stood uneasily in the pools of Black Rain, slime-coated creatures surging from the sea of black liquid, wailing in disarrayed cries, dodging the incoming PokéBalls that bounced off the flooded pavement. "What's wrong with your aim?!" she demanded. Suddenly the red-eyed mask dimmed through the darkness. "We have to keep at this...I'm NOT letting the Shin-Ra handle this."  
  
"I don't think you have that option, Officer..." informed the sillhouette of something she couldn't discern through the rain by now almost impossible to see through...someone could go blind just trying. She pulled herself out of the knee-high liquid and bent down, straining to identify the outline.  
  
"Why don't we?"  
  
She lifted her head to shout more orders to the men but at that moment she saw what whoever that was had meant: a silver blaze with tints of sapphire wove between buildings. Jenny whipped her head towards the others who had sighted a beast and raised the cannon to aim. "Save your fire. Wait 'till it gets within range!" The monstrous horned creature they previously aimed at fled into the night a whirling fireball, its hooves scorching the pavement as it broke into a stampede. The cannon groaned, tilting up towards the target. The mutant cries diminished and abated as the cannon fire ceased for a precious few moments the remaining few had to flee. The target soared closer to view. The sight scope locked on, a cross landing on the winged shape, spewing out a flash of violet and grey.  
  
The Master Ball exited from the cannon's mouth and hurtled through the sky towards the winged form that suddenly halted in midair. A clawed hand snapped open to recieve the incoming projectile. Draconis Rex's arm hurled slightly backwards with the impact, and he examined it with a frown, turning the sphere over in his scaled palm. "I despise catch," he growled, digging his claws into the painted metal. "Your human friends want to play, Highwind." Patches of teeth bent upwards in a mischievous grin appeared through the dark rain. He let himself drop onto the roof of a building directly below him and spread his wings. Cid snapped, his eyes blinking furiously at the purple object scratched up in his claws. He saw a similar-shaped device, only it was purple where the red was and mice and birds came out of it. Erasing the distraction he flung the shitball away and snarled at the wind that his other half made strong. "...I don't want any of yer lizardshit this time, Drac. What the frig are you doing?!"  
  
"I'm playing....Twister," he answered, the massive wing beats growing more rapid, the winds around it circling in cyclonic fashion, the whirlwind concentrating into an artificial tornado that descended ifrom its source and tore through the awning of the building below, heading straight for the source of the projectile as it tore up the concrete and asphalt, vacuuming the thousands of metallic spheres and hoisting them up into the pouring skies, expelling massive tons of the balls from the tornado that began to die as it reached its source and shredded the machine in its destructive winds, narrowly avoiding the human targets that scrambled across the sidewalk for their lives.  
  
It was with limited breath that Jenny unclipped her police radio from a pouch attatched to her belt and gasped with wide eyes, the dying winds of the immense whirlwind dying but assaulting her and her squad with mind-blowing winds that forced them to grab onto the slippery streetlamp. With her free hand she wedged the phone betewen shoulder and her lower jaw, barely managing a coherent order,  
  
"All..units..be..on...the ...lookout..for...anything...out of...the ordinary..Notify..the PGM.....do not, I REPEAT, do NOT...inform..Shin-Ra...." she hacked the last order, letting go of the streetlamp that bent and wavered amidst the titanic wind that had ripped through an entire city block, leaving a a deep fissure in the asphalt. It looked like no one was hurt, but......  
  
A chiding meow was heard on the torn awning a block away. The outline of a cat left the site of destruction. He wondered why the tornado diminished so quickly..  
  
He blinked his slit eyes and focused on the empty air transformed from chaotic winds. His head tilted on the black fur of his shoulders as he observed the flying creature with caution.  
  
The cat made a noise of nervous anxiety. if that was indeed one of Hojo's products of scientific progress, then they were in trouble. Shin-Ra itself was in trouble already... If there were humans left, they would want an immediate explanation....they would want it straight from the president himself..  
  
"He's not here," the cat sighed inaudibly, jumping off the ripped awning and heading uptown towards the giant building in the distance...to his place of work. "I was right. If I had warned him, he could have taken precautions. This crisis should precipitate a board meeting. Sooner or later they'll find out about his condition. And if I know Heidegger," he added with a grimace of sharp teeth. "He'll build fifty Proud Clods just to squash anything to convince himself he's done something that makes him worthy of his rank." He walked through the flooded streets, his diminished size making the malodorous chemical much deeper than it would be if he was plain, old Reeve. Now he was his favorite animal, his eyes to the world without the Mog. Not that he minded it..he was in no ways deformed like the other ones. He could still speak, think, luxuries his genetic structure granted that reduced the Black Rain's emotional effects to nothing.  
  
He ambled across the flooded sidewalk. It struck him with a slowness that carried to his gait, that stopped altogether. "Why am I going back? I have no need of money, now...a company ruled by the Weapons department doesn't need a city planner...with that kind of administration, Shin-Ra's doomed," he concluded with disdain as he turned around and started to head further downtown as a half-timid, half-determined smile that came rarely spread across his face as Cait Sith walked in a direction directly opposite of Shin-Ra headquarters, passing under the torn awning.  
  
"Now's the perfect time to defect."  
  
Directly above him two stories high, the silver figure on the rooftop roared in anguish. It had taken every ounce of muscle and will to freeze the bastard's wings, the effort leaving Cid breathing roughly and gripping the edge of the raised roof as he made the stupid things stiff enough so they couldn't move, couldn't stir up those killer whirlwinds. That jackass already killed enough people, people that he didn't really give a shit about but if he could keep that dragon from doing one less atrocity, he'd do it. Maybe it would make him sleep better at night. Or day. Or whenever.  
  
"Not like anyone knows anymore with that friggin' rain," Cid growled, dropping onto the floor of the roof, doubting he could get even the cheapest of rooms with the gil he lost somewhere between that sleep dart in his back and winding up in hunchback's fucking bell tower. And the way HE looked... "Forget it," Cid resolved, dropping like a dead carcass in the spreading pool of Black Rain, his other side a plague in his dreams.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Rufus had long since passed by the center of commotion. Had he known it transpired, it would be no fur off of his muzzle..they were only living beings with no practical use for him. The ones that did...he was now in the same predicament as them, but...somehow it did not matter. For he was Rufus Shin-Ra. They were only weapons. He was the president of Shin-Ra/Silph Inc., as well as the posessor of a massive fortune and a grand mansion, one that his father did not grant him as inheritance, one that he could attest to truly being the first and rightful owner of.  
  
But before he could let himself through the ornate doors, someone cleared his throat behind him. Rufus' head turned with suspicion flaring from the purely animal snarl.  
  
"I would not enter that way if I were you, Mr. President."  
  
Rufus felt a roar ready to burst through his ruined vocal chords. There was that man...the labcoated man with the aggravating energy field still glowing about him. In his hand sat the device. The man was annoyingly persevering..as it was, he desired three things: a soak in his jacuzzi, a glass of milk, and sleep. Whoever would prevent him from doing this would promptly be gored. With a furious growl that would make weaker souls flee, Rufus descended his lavish doorstep, made slippery and uneasily braved by the rain blown between corinthian pillars that supported the facade of the house. He descended the last step and appraoched the man, staring the one lesser in statue with eyes both haggard and vibrant with a killer instinct he did not pay mind to if it engulfed him.  
  
What_do_you_want?! I have enough ailments to occupy me as it is. I did not ask for a prowler. Leave at once or suffer the consequences, he hissed, the muscles of his upper jaw stretching to form the ferocious look a jungle predator gets when it wants to intimidate an invader.  
  
An infuriatingly PERSERVING one, at that.  
  
"I detest bothering you, Mr. President, I was only going to offer my services that will greatly improve your condition."  
  
LEAVE_MY_PROPERTY.  
  
Rufus did not bare his teeth at him again. Had the man seen his face again, it would be directly eye to eye, the feline mauling the body of the interloper.  
  
"Understood, Mr. President.. But I will be around....." A knowing smile as if he was knowledgable of similar situations before. How many, however....Rufus would probably never be aware of it. The trespasser faded into the night as ordered, a warning tone in his aged voice. "I do not think you will enjoy the same comfort once you enter your house."  
  
The sheet of rain managed to run higher than the trimmed grass on the sprawling front lawn. With a feline hiss, Rufus upturned his nose pompously, characteristic of those who were so accustomed to copious wealth. He pressed his claw on the doorbell, seething as he scratched it. Without wondering how he managed this, he retracted the claws and waited with aggravation for the servants to open the door for him.  
  
An eternity passed before a squeamish man peered through the eyehole and swung the door open. And early morning haziness led him to stare for a full minute as a giant cat wearing his employer's clothing, soaking with some horrible liquid that fell in sheets outside, trudged in through the doorway. It wasn't until he heard the cat's fierce snarl at the visible spot on the china plate that he dropped it. The dish shattered on the varnished hardwood floor and sent the cat snarling, startled at the noise which caused him to see not only the china broken but the glistening floor dented.  
  
Clumsy fool. Clean_this_up.  
  
That was not what escaped his mouth.  
  
"RGGHHHRRRRRGHHH!!!!!!"  
  
The man was frozen in terror. He paled colorless and fainted as Rufus grabbed his employee by his shirt collar before he hit the broken china and the floor and roared in his face. "RRRGHHHHHRRRGHARGHH!!" NOW. No movement. Have you somehow gone deaf?! He began to shake the man more. In a rage he flung the man across the spacious room, a crack of bones alerting the maids and butlers who scurried into the parlor. They hurried to the body in distress. One of them turned the rumpled mass of clothes, flesh, and cracked bone and examined the face. Shouts of "He's dead!" "The monster killed him!" reverberated through the mansion, and through Rufus' cat ears as he heard every word, magnifying to devour a bruised pride, for these were humans who would become the dirt and filth to clog up the gutters had he not provided them with monetary sustenance... and these were the same humans who dared to yell at him, their faces marked with terror and outrage.  
  
But if that did not unravel his normally composed nerves enough......  
  
"GRR......ROWWWWRRRFFF."  
  
Dark Nation heaved itself from the now-dented floor, eyes red from a terminated sleep, drool dripping from its gleaming teeth pressed in a ferocious snarl.  
  
DOWN, Dark Nation.  
  
The black dog pounced, a one-headed Cerberus, its lean but menacing form sailing through the air, other furniture, a painting, its deadly scope fixated at Rufus' jugular.  
  
DOWN..  
  
It was then he realized the old man was right. With an almost frantic dodge Rufus ducked, the dog responding to its senses and swiftly turning itself so its hind paws sprang from the door, bringing it a mere leap away from Rufus' tail. The cat blew up the lush carpet, Dark Nation's claws tearing through it and the floor beneath, its giant bark pulsing through Rufus' head, which at this moment, was blank, the only thought weaving through it was to escape the jaws of death ready to close on his flank. A growl tore through the halls of the mansion as Dark Nation caught the tail of his trenchcoat and ripped it clean off, shredding it to pieces.  
  
He lunged for the flesh and the jaws, still occupied with the torn coat, snapped closed on air. With an infuriated growl, it snapped its neck backward in time to see its prey blow through the doors and slam them to make the entire edifice shake.  
  
Rufus stumbled out of his mansion, fur dishevelled from running, lacking his pricey coat, with the shroud of disillusion tugging at a loose lower jaw.  
  
"A bit less confident, Mr. President?" A listless hiss that once again ordered him to leave, but with far less conviction. "I thought as much. Now, same thing as before--" He wasn't surprised at the vicious struggle the cat offered as he continued to bite and snap and mentally threaten while the older man fixed a metallic headband around his thrashing head--perhaps used to this sort of thing, unruly and uncooperative patients-- From it dangled a small microphone that bent downward under the unceasing flood. Visibly unmindful of this fact, the older man tapped a button on the inside of the machine, and Rufus felt a piercing pain as long wires snaked from the device with hooks at the end...much like he had seen in the laboratory... and they dug through the fur, hide, and finally the skull, working their way in until they had attatched to his brain.  
  
What...is this contraption..?..!  
  
Rufus growled at the disarming sensation of hearing a voice through his ears, not simply inside his mind. What have you done?! Again, a voice, his own, clearly weaving through his ears without the damned growl to hamper it.  
  
"I have made your condition a bit more bearable," the man answered, taking a step backwards to observe his accomplishment with satisfaction. He made a gesture with one of his rather large hands, in a tone that was amply friendly..perhaps a few degrees above what Rufus could deem a legitimate good nature.  
  
"Feel free to test it. Re-enter your house..."  
  
I will NOT go back into---  
  
A blast of thunder set him hissing and screeching. His fur in disarray fell into disobedience and rebellion, and he was angrily aware he appeared to be groomed for the wilderness. With an irascible snarl, the president stalked to the front porch, kicking at the Black Rain that had accumulated there. The infernal liquid burbled in glee. The fluid that forbade him entrance into his OWN HOUSE...  
  
I fail to see how this will solve my predicament---  
  
In the middle of the skeptical statement, the doors burst open with a heavy slam and the dog struck down its prey in a black blur, pinning the cat down on the concrete where his head smashed onto with grinding force. For the first time since the transformation, the abominable headache spread through every inch of his skull, drawing a rattled roar. But that was the least of his concerns, at this point.. A snarl was its only warning before his former guard dog rushed in for the throat. By order of instinct alone, that demand of survival, before its maw opened and shut on the vital point, its owner's enraged reprimand blew through its ears.  
  
Desist...can't you HEAR me, you witless mutt?!! Rufus roared, not the more aggressive sound but the recognizable voice alone... staying the beast. With a growling whimper it got off its master's chest, its teeth still grit, its coarse fur still bristling in pent ferocity. It ran its nose along the cat, the odor of feline pervading its nostrils and inflaming its killer instinct..it coiled its body, the only thing that kept it from lunging was the master's cultivated voice that could not shake off the remnant of a long-forgotten rootlessness..the voice that was .somehow coming from the cat..from the victim....from its meal.  
  
But Dark Nation wasn't one to ponder over the why. It accepted the bizarre fact and stalked back through the doors, the servants wondering if the dog was sick. It was programmed to attack any intruder, a vicious guard dog that knew no mercy so gave no mercy.  
  
Besides, it hadn't been fed today....  
  
But it retreated, because of their employer's unmistakable command to do so. They allowed the dog inside and stared for the longest time at the feline monster in Rufus' violet turtleneck and starched trousers and brown leather shoes, all darkened considerably by the falling liquid. With heightened surety, now sensing more fear in them rather than revulsion, the cat strode towards the servants, pale with terror.  
  
Whether it was of Rufus Shin-Ra or the feline that stood before them, it was difficult to tell....  
  
But he was an opportunist. He always had been. The president siezed the moment of respect and growled with the authority he once more posessed,  
  
What are you standing idly for? A towel to dry off this---He shook his fur in the manner of animals that had fur, the orange-brown coat bunching about his body, immediately running a paw thrugh his drenched head that diluted the shock-- disgusting filth would be VERY much appreciated.  
  
One of the servants departed as briskly as humanly possible, fearing for his life more than his occupation. So what if he was taking orders from an animal, a monster? A monster that could snap his pathetic body in two? It was only because of their superior's voice that prompted them to obey. Without it he was only another beast.  
  
But Rufus did not dare think of that. Prepare the bath..he snarled at one of the others that turned on his heel and started walking. .wait..on second thought, delay that. An involuntarily growl as the president caught sight of the labcoated man that hadn't moved. The order was curt. I will be carrying out a transaction with a client. The rest of you, depart.  
  
The feline gave a growl of nowadays, a rare satiation at this instant compliance. His ego had swelled to its normal state. And who had he to thank for it but the scientist, two of which he undoubtedly abominated, two of which were traitors. With a curious gaze Rufus turned, descending the marble porch and assuming an almost affable air.  
  
You...what is your name? he inquired, smoothing the fur on his head to a tolerable appearance...if not covered in the black fluid that clung to his fur, he would be...presentable. Armed with this assurance, he walked towards the man in the labcoat, who had his left hand in his pocket in the manner of which one of his 'patients' before it became what it currently was. A similar smile to that 'patient' now adorned his face hidden from Rufus' view, staring off into the drowning hedges that lined the immense lot. At the cat's words the man shuffled backwards and turned partially.  
  
"I'm Professor Samuel Oak," he introduced himself. As Rufus processed the reply, the scientist volunteered an additional piece of information that was the key for his alias....back into influence and back into control of the organization HE founded. "I formerly held a position in the Shin-Ra science department."  
  
Even the astute President Shin-Ra would not search through mountains of records to search for information on the employee Demoni, discharged for a trivial reason surely obscured by everything that had happened....  
  
I beg to challenge that opinion, Rufus communicated in a stately manner that betrayed no hint of gratitude that without a doubt, fueled his decision. You are now the chief executive of the Science Department.  
  
The scientist nodded his lower jaw, and Rufus leaned towards him, offering a paw soaked in Black Rain. The older man took it, the darkness alone concealing a smile of a carefully planned victory.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED...  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Next: Disaster strikes as another city bites the dust, and the remaining three Shin-Ra executives finally take action. Stay tuned. -_^ 


	24. Insubordination

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
A/N: Yay...this for once, will NOT be a general chapter. ^^; I just realized something else. oO Semi-human cat..errr...S-010 was not modeled on Lynx. In fact, he looks nothing like Lynx. :Phew.:: On another note, I finally got to read H.G. Wells' The Island of  
  
Doctor Moreau. Brilliant. Brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant. Truly horrific and------wow. That's what I call sci-fi. It explores the theme in excruciating detail. YOU_MUST_READ_IT. This fic is NOT based on that unbelievably amazing literary masterpiece. Nor are its ideas derived from it. ::Phew:: Erin, thanks for suggesting it. ^^  
  
*~*~*  
  
God knows how long they've been digging that pit. They got some balls to dig right where they knocked down the HQ. I saw them rig the building...it fell hard. They say it's symbolism. They say we're gonna fall hard too. Every civiliation falls, they say. It's our turn.  
  
They bulldoze the wreck. Bulldozing the competition. Digging starts before you know it. You shoulda seen them---gadgets that our tech department can't dream of building and with Team Rocket's funds right now---forget it.  
  
They're still digging. It's machines doing all the work so they don't give if some dumbass falls in the green pit. No one's gonna be able to find em, anyway. The green stuff that's leaking out of the ground in some places eats em alive. The robots keep going.  
  
They just got a little more to go with rocks that're in the way. They've got armed masks in the roads and I ain't about to sneak my squad by em. You're on your own for this one. But you're gonna crush em. No corporation's gonna wipe us out. There's no way we're down. Eat that, Shin-Ra!  
  
~Unsigned letter from a Rocket, intercepted and siezed by Shin-Ra authorities for security measures. Written at the same time Team Rocket central HQ was destroyed. Archived by the Mahogany Town police department.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 24: Insubordination  
  
*~*~*  
  
A groaning bellow lifted from the sideways mountain of black earth that rocked with abating weakness. It slowly turned upright, Black Rain mixed with liquid dirt poured off its battered hide in cataracts, revealing if only partially, the hideous monstrosity.  
  
It threw its titanic skull skyward, the liquid that obstructed any sight draining off its blazing eyes and across its fangs that showed through slightly opened jaws at the eternal midnight that enveloped all. Everything was covered by a dark substance, not unlike the blood that coursed inside him..that had earlier been ripped out by a thing with far greater strength than he, splitting open his hide and snapping straight through his horn that didn't re-materialize and nearly slashing his head in two and his midsection in four, charring hurting flesh with torpid inferno...  
  
What..the..devil? he queried, returning strength overshadowed by an animalistic fear of suddenly being thrust into a different environment, one differing in ways that at this moment, Giovanni could not fathom. He tolerated the change that would otherwise unnerve him...for it steeped him in absolute darkness, the nocturnal surroundings that Ivy programmed him to thrive in, to keep him far from the sun that warmed the Earth and its lifeforms, to isolate him from that Earth and make him dependent on a world void of that golden star.  
  
The darkness was not night..as the lizard was nocturnal, he would have desired food regardless if he had eaten beforehand. No..it was artificial darkness, caused by the falling liquid. It smelled of a metallic odor. His nostrils dilated. The bestial senses absorbed the heavy odor of....blood? he questioned, straining his eyes at the liquid clotting on his hide...growling aggravated at the difficulty of discerning between what pulsed through his blood vessels and what poured from the sky: it all seemed the same.  
  
Gemin----He corrected himself for a learned fear of a diced muzzle-----Brock. The rush of the liquid. What is this?.! he growled in dismay and shock, basking in the safety of the total darkness but at the same time wondering...why was it raining---his tongue wormed between his drooping fangs and caught at the liquid. Memory recent and long past knew the taste instantaneously.- --black blood. But...how could this be possile? Unless...the canisters..that is what they contained... ..his memory had been hazy...Evidently, they had left Pallet Town...he recalled the painless white light.....then nil.  
  
The vengeful demon soon revealed all.  
  
Funny you should ask...Zero-X lost a tentative grip and his girth connected with the ground again, flipped back-first from the inertia..and the broiling but controlled hate of the boy..driving the attack. The lizard snarled in a rapid bite of pain as Brock drove the nail-sharp spikes on his shoulders into his nemesis' upper arm, conviently gouging a new mark into the brand. A toxic accusation dripped from his unrelenting growl. You should KNOW. He thrusted his shoulder upward, jerking the huge mass of hide that groaned with the crunch of pain. You KNEW what was in those drums, didn't you? Another jerk. The liquid flowed and ran into itself. Spikes still lodged in the arm, he wrenched the massive head and melted the fires of Giovanni's eyes with white-hot crimson. You KNEW that it would make Misty like this-----like us.  
  
An asserting growl from the neuter creature that once had been a young girl.  
  
Where did you derive THAT notion, boy? came the challenging hiss. What did it matter if his ego and his pride cracked and lay in broken fragments. He was still Giovanni...he WOULD command the same respect he had as a human...he had had enough of the youth's anger... this time it was unrighteous--- he did not deserve his mental allegations this time--he was not guilty.  
  
I did not know...THIS---He pointed his snout at the sky, still locked with Gemini's double grip--- would come of it. What makes you believe that I would know the outcome?.! A growl, a crushing snap of teeth that missed its mark. Laughably fell short of the demon's head whose hatred exploded.  
  
Not MUCH...he growled, ramming his shoulder farther into the brand, ripping slowly through the layers and layers of what was designed to be impregnable hide that had so recently been healed, and was now getting torn apart again.  
  
Maybe it's because THEY work for YOU.. A surprised growl that suggested uninvolvement. He looked the other directly in his malformed visage with a glint of what looked like---honesty? Couldn't be.  
  
They never spoke of----  
  
A strangled roar from the raging mass of grey threw Giovanni's rebounding thoughts into turmoil as his eyes filled with an explosive beam of light and heat that drilled into the corneas and knocked his skull sideways, shuddering from the fierce impact.  
  
Tell ME that. Coarse breathing could be heard through the driving rain, along with a feminine voice....the..girl's? But...no mere girl any longer...that much was apparent as he felt the superheat of a Hyper Beam blast razing his arm that had not started to heal before it was battered again.  
  
I...DID NOT KNOW, he snarled with wide-eyed panic, the, to the others, a weak excuse that came out of self-preservation and a lifetime of lies. They came at him at once: Gemini and the Gyarados had evidently double-teamed. Alone, if he had full control of his brain, Brock was insufficient to kill him. But with another one of sizable power....He began to retreat his unwieldy girth, the will to survive overtaking waning pride and ego. His fangs held locked, using the broken tool of intimidation, the display of agression only serving as a magnet to the true aggressors.  
  
Butch and Cassidy, report-----what is the meaning of this treachery..?..!! The hostile growls and the threat of an encroaching agony reigned the air. Their breathing invoked death. His hide wasn't healing fast enough. They could easily reach the soft innards, the ribs, the black heart... From fighting the winged shadow, his fire was spent, a chunk of his side was gone down the shadow's throat..and he was slow. They were quick..He could flee, but they would catch him, take him down, unless...  
  
A hostile croak with a terse matter-of-factness blunted the blade of concentrated hatred.  
  
It ain't treachery, boss.  
  
The mutant frog sprang foward from its short crawl and hurled a blast of acid at the Gyarados, that burned into the rain-swamped ground as it sensed an onrushing projectile and dove. She made an imprint in the mud that changed its hideous shape as it lifted itself to two legs, latching on the ground clumsily and without dexterity, getting herself upright in time to see an airborne monster descend on the demon.  
  
What name would you give it?  
  
Revenge, was the curt answer. The air shot up to a boil. Brock gave a margled hiss as a fireball burned into his lower arm, threatening to exit the other side. The retaliation was nearly instantaneous. A third Hyper Beam blasted through the black air, blazing past Cassidy's flattened ears and renting the ground, mud flying and joining the rain. The mud fall sprayed across their heads and blinded the attacker long enough for the bat/fox to ascend out of range. We're returning the favor to them.  
  
The bastard was right after all.....Gemini growled, wiping the mud out of his glaring eyes, showing no remorse for accusing an "innocent".. I'm still taking you down for killing my family, for letting this happen to Misty..He shook his head in a removed despair churning inside a shell of rage and balled his inhuman fists. You're not doing us a favor by getting revenge on them. We're--dangerous, don't you get it?! He raised an incriminating claw at the lizard, hatred gnawing at the other's guilty soul. Especially YOU, you have so much power and that's all you're after. He dropped his pointing claws and turned away from his nemeses, his eyes narrowed to slits and letting the rain drip down his stiffened lips. But you don't care, right? All you care about is revenge because now YOU'RE freaks.  
  
A hot screech in defense answered the hasty assumption. Yes, they were selfish. Yes, it drove them more to take revenge once they mutated themselves, but that sight on Valencia Island.....  
  
Don't jump to any conclusions, brat, Cassidy growled, folding her wings around her body that dropped silently. She could tell she was right in front of the kid...the smell of hate bore into her nostrils. You and the runt didn't see what Butch saw or hear what we heard in that room we busted. She took flight once more and glided towards the odor of fear and uncertainty. Maybe...guilt, too. Whatever. She would find out the truth now. Those weren't the only batch.  
  
The steady, frequent beat of Cassidy's wings closed the distance they had started, flapping rapidly directly above the lizard's head, in deadly proximity to the horn. Giovanni suddenly felt that he was being interrogated by her. The question was, why? It did not seem likely that she would suspect...unless...  
  
Before he could piece together a protest, Cassidy started circling, a vulture to scavenge the meat of the truth.  
  
There were more...a lot more...at Ivy's lab. Guts hanging out, lying in their own crap. They got lucky and died.  
  
Dread manifested in the perspiration of blood, though no one could tell. It might have been the rain that bashed the ground heavily and unceasingly..  
  
The brown and grey creature lowered herself until the spot where her eyes would have been was level with her boss'. And somehow that empty brown-and-grey patch of fur was far more intimidating than the most monstrous of eyeballs.  
  
Someone had it in for the no-talents. If they couldn't make it in Team Rocket they would make it as labrats.  
  
Her wing beats wrote the rythym of a guilty heart. Butch started to crawl, drawn by the odor of treachery. He could smell it, too. Guilt releases its stench of terror when it's been discovered.  
  
The only one who has power to strip rank is the boss. What I want to know is...  
  
Did you know about it?  
  
An uncomfortable silence. From it the Rockets knew the answer but a band of liars could trust nothing as decietful as them, the silence. In the deepest quietude lurked a masked danger.  
  
He formed half a single word before another noise arrested all thought. Another shape sounded nearly noiseless on the mud, but the figure's failed attempt at secrecy directed the hostility towards its trigger. If the Black Rain could affect a normal, everday human---then there must be more-- a lot more. Now nothing was normal. The five waited with caged animosity for it to move.  
  
Its voice spurred anger's hasty release and encompassed all but the Gyarados with a tempetuous rage. The Black Rain's darkness shrouded its features, that perhaps were less monstrous and deformed than its true, "human" form.  
  
He neglected no detail...precisely the same instinctual tendencies....a...A weakened clawing of mud and a labored breath hampered by a growling hiss. ...including its vampiric nature.....  
  
Brock recognized that voice. It was coming from him but it wasn't his. The dog he drained dry that took his form..a flawless physical disguise but the way it talked.... quiet, dangerous, slippery as if greased in oil...a cruel tone removed from the misery of those who were unlucky enough to fall into his hands, a tone that had slipped into a gratifying weakness, a vulnerability that didn't bate the edge of the demon's hate.  
  
"YOURRGH." The forked tongue rattled between bared fangs, growling at an identical forked tongue bared between identical white fangs thirsting to be bathed red.  
  
Possibly...I feel that I do not know myself anymore... ha.....heh.....the scientist forced a feeble laugh, tasting the saturated air, searching for the thing that would satisfy this aggravating lust.......it collapsed from weakness, shaking on its scaled palms, red eyes slowly emptying of his fragmented sanity, while the others were on their guard, fully expecting it to strike.  
  
He took notice of the original owner of his current DNA, regaining the detatched, condescending attitude that marked him as Hojo. ...ah...I am surprised you have not exploited your psychokinetic abilities...they are..quite..useful...for both targeting a specific location and teleportation to that exact point.....A ragged gasp stifled his altered lungs. The compulsion was far stronger than he first anticipated...he could not ignore it: it would be ridiculous to lose consciousness where his former specimens would rip him apart...  
  
He wrenched himself out of the mud, the other creatures lurching at what they interpreted as a hostile movement. Strange..how it would be to humans, they would see it as animals protecting their territory from an interloper, but in truth--it was far more complex. The fear of getting caught, the fear of observation and experimentation.  
  
All save for the Gyarados, anyway. Confusion plagued her mind rather than fear. The shape doubled-over on the ground with the red eyes and white fangs---it looked exactly like Brock, except it had hair and Brock didn't. Or......was that one Brock, the one plowing his claws through the mud, struggling to heave himself upright, the one breathing hard--for a moment, she couldn't tell the difference.  
  
But the difference was soon known.  
  
The difficulty of teleporting did not lay in the act itself, but in the barrier of the Dark type-----it was true that Gemini had entered experimentation as a Dark type. Its psychic abilities..they were artificial..manufactured to make the Pokémon completely immune to itself. However, it backfired miserably. In nature, the dark type was completely immune to psychic energy. Conversely, the dark type was quite effective against a psychic. But this artificial introduction had negated dark's immunity entirely, weakening it in the presence of psychic energy. It was an embarassing failure, and he repeated the experiment countless times on the subject, never comprehending that this failure caused the youth a hell of pain.  
  
Well......now he was about to taste it.  
  
The scarlet energy dripped from his brain, forming waves that emanated with increasing labor of trying to combat its natural element, squeezing, tearing, crushing....he felt like his brian was leaking out of holes in his skull, becoming physical projectiles that dealt as much pain to the body as it did to the mind...but it was simply the sensation..heightened drastically by the immensity of the power... that gradually engulfed the downed form, rolling across the ground to escape the force.....  
  
The red light swallowed the figure and stole it away.  
  
Cassidy's supsersonic rippled through the air. No trace of him. The teleportation had succeeded.... but to where he had gone was anyone's guess. And wherever that was, she didn't care. It didn't have anything to do with Team Rocket.  
  
Misty, on the other hand, felt a shrouded dread creep up her spine. She lumbered in Brock's direction, growling a question that emanated the same dread.  
  
Who was that?  
  
A nightmare that won't go away, Brock answered with a hateful hiss. Now he wants blood. .Brock gouged through the mud in unveiled frustration, knowing that it would probably be populated town..or a city, lots of blood to satisfy his thirst..he should KNOW, right, dependent, made dependent on other people's blood.  
  
He couldn't let it happen. Pewter was gone, Viridian was wasted.. No..he would save them..no matter how much he loathed and feared them..he would save them.  
  
Brock began to search the sprawling expanse of land before him..... bringing all focus onto the presence of psychic energy. His head began to hurt..the energy...it wasn't dark energy, used to using it, but the psychic energy..like it wasn't supposed to be there, like it clashed with the dark energy...it wasn't natural..it wasn't right... The red light seeped from his head, wracked by a pain that doubled him over on the mud, both claws curving into his temples that throbbed, sore and swollen with the pressure.  
  
And then.....  
  
The shuddering light stilled. A panicked roar of a crawling despair enveloped Misty with doubled dread. Brock dropped to his knees from the monumental effort and let the pain of thought subside. He shut his eyes and stood, his demonic tail dragging half-buried in the whirling mud.  
  
Ce...Cerulean. Misty, he's going for your hometown.  
  
The dread exploded into full-blown terror. There were no more words needed to say what had to be done. The psychic energy slowly engulfed both shapes, one convulsing from the crushing force, the other emitting panicked roars in the taunting knowledge that they may already be too late to save them.  
  
Two burning bursts of crimson removed the threat of their vengeance but did not remove their hatred. But another hatred.. the kind that causes the downfall of empires, within the body, a deadly conflict that would snap the foundations of the frame and send the entire thing crumbling. The distraction was louder than the rumble of the earth.  
  
Cass..he bailed out.  
  
Butch called from a good twenty feet away. Cassidy unfurled her bare wings, sweeping low over the mud layers and emitting a sharp growl menacing in its implications.  
  
He knew. She lowered her long muzzle, embarassed that for her quick mind, didn't figure it out before, didn't even suspect that their human supremacist boss apparently deemed totally human Grunts worthy of becoming subhuman....  
  
Covert operations.....Cover-ups...bloody secrets that he didn't tell them, elites for Christ's sakes... hadn't they been his loyal agents? This was their repay?  
  
Did you expect something different?  
  
This is Team Rocket. Lying is the way of life.  
  
The half-discernable cross between a halting laugh and a growl was grim. So, this is how it ends, hm? Her pointed teeth curled into a dangerous grin, partly concealed by the skin of her wings that flapped through the muggy air. He thinks he has something to fear. A raking screech sounded through the dark, heavy and unyielding. Come on...we're not going to disappoint him.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The Black Rain thinned and waned for the first time since the angel unleashed it. The obtrusive darkness of the sky, slate grey forming in the few clouds that had emptied all precipitation now visible when there had been only rain. The hot globe that had banished itself from sight now returned incompletely, casting a single ray through the shroud of greying clouds.  
  
In the city northeast of Pewter's remains, the abating rainfall made the frame of the entire city more or less visible: from a handful of Vermillion's liberated citizens crowding into the alleys that were beginning to get cramped to the outlines of the buildings that trapped them on three sides..why, even the hollow corpse that slumped downward on the concrete wall whose body whitened from both terror and the drainage was wholly discernable.  
  
The stolen blood splotched red on his rumpled clothes, staining it with his own death. Some of the hungrier citizens fed on the still-warm body while it's murderer caught the concrete wall, crawled over the bickering beasts, and dropped on the pavement adjacent to them, its red fangs greedy for more O negative, of which, there was already a limited supply.  
  
Not nearly enough..Hojo growled, blood dripping onto his claws. The temptation to drain one of his feeding neighbors was great, but he perished the inclination. I cannot sustain myself on altered blood...Pity I cannot analyze the blood type...determine which is least detrimental to this body...He moved farther away from the chaotic alleyway, drifting towards the city's lit gym, growling in evident frustration at the unfeasibility of the process.......Doing so would require the use of delicate equipment that I at the present moment am incapable of manipulating. No...the only solution is to drink until Gemini's.....he stole away through the rain's thinning cloak, the craving for blood only partially satisfied.....the more he attempted to ignore it.....the more it clamored...the more it yearned.... for blood....that coated the inside of his throat. Blood that wasn't his..that had been taken from others to preserve Gemini's-----now HIS---life---at least, for the time being. Until he assumed some other shape..  
  
Which at this point, could be roughly a thousand opportunities to rid himself of the craving, of this degrading want..but the desire was..... impossible...to escape.....trapped in this nightmare that he created himself...  
  
A bestial lamentation chorused through Cerulean's streets...a condition that Hojo had succeeded in immersing himself during his adult life......the millions of test subjects whose pleas he ignored, in some cases, took notice and revelled in their torment, while some cried vengeance against what really was a lowly thief that had robbed them of everything. A bandit wearing a labcoat that at this moment he was currently lacking---that youth--what was his name, most likely stripped him. Hm..how odd it felt, to be unidentifiable, to become lost in a swamp of others in a similar position--though their status was fixed---they could not change into another form, they had lost their human identities and gained another, permanent identity. His was temporary, forever changing, making it simpler to forget his own, human body...that didn't crave for blood, maybe the numbing effects of Mako, but not blood...  
  
The craving made him stagger, drawing sweat, forcing him to lean on a fire hydrant, sniffing it in crazed fervor, entertaining the possibility of the red fluid..the situation was growing more dire. He shifted his dropping head towards the mutant crowd. Blood everywhere, but not the type he and his colleagues had designed Gemini to drink.. an inhibiting trait that forced it to prey on beings without a constructed defense. "Innocents"...how much more is one hated and despised if it takes an innocent's life than if it takes the life of one whose hands are equally sullied?  
  
Infected with the disease of these ponderings that served to deepen this frustration, he drifted from the hydrant and stumbled towards the created race, pouring from the shadows, some hungry, some lost, in varied mannerims of varied impulses, some with command of speech and some deprived of it, some that had the true essence of a monster and others that appeared more human, some with their intelligence eliminated and others that still had some brain, but all blurring the human line. It was difficult to tell humans that had become Pokémon from Pokémon that had become human. The boundary had been crossed many times over.  
  
Then there were the Pokémon that had remained Pokémon...still their blood was red. They were unaffected. That was his target. Oxygenated blood...yes... Perhaps the craving would leave after this one's blood.....what was it again?  
  
A growl rose from flurries of orange and white that stamped across the wet pavement behind him, trampling over the puddles of Black Rain. Several policemen followd them, barking orders hardly audible over the barking Growlithe. There was a whish of air, flashes of metal spheres pelting the beasts around him---drowning the cries of Vermillion citizens that found themselves again imprisoned.  
  
The pointed ears twitched in reocgnition of the device. Clearly they were on a capturing spree...perhaps to protect the humans that carried the recessive blood type, without mindlessly destroying them. Gradually, hindered by this induced weakness, he became aware of his predicament.  
  
It would not do for him to be caught...his captors would not know of his....specialized nutritional needs. He would most likely die of thirst. All of that effort and to perish anyways.....that was life's crass sense of humor. Ha...but with the proximity of the prey, it seemed as if it wouldn't play its joke.  
  
The head of the Growlithe pack stopped short at the crouching shape that arrested its run with a deft swipe of its claw. In a rapid grab it clutched the puppy by the throat, sinking its scarlet fangs into the skin, the protruding spikes guarding its prey from the alarmed Growlithe that bunched in a jumble of chaos, their disarrayed howling alerting the cops that were throwing PokéBalls like mad.  
  
"Jesus--it's got Growlithe--" one of them exclaimed, flinging out his gun from the holster and lowering it at the squatting thing that stared curiously into the barrel, hissed, and went back to its blood, lapping it with a wild fervor that disgusted and horrified the spectating humans. The gun would've fired then and there if the other cop didn't stay him.  
  
"Hold up..you heard what she said---"  
  
"Screw her! There's no way we can catch every_single one of these freaks!! That woman's off her rocker!" the other growled, letting off a shot that wrenched a yelp from the canine shield. "What the--?! I hit-----"  
  
The blood on the bullet wounds sparked mad light in the glowing eyes, and it licked at the blood hungrily, the forked tongue passing over the liquid with cruel speed. All the while, the cop could only squeeze the trigger and get nothing but the empty click. He re-holstered it and fumbled for a PokéBall, a bit remorseful at his impulses.  
  
"Yeah, you did. Now lets do this RIGHT," the other one urged, supressing a whole slew of berating he wanted to inflict on the green boy. He stepped foward, triggering ripples in the black puddle, unlatching an Ultra Ball from his beltloop. He hurled it in the same motion, the sphere connecting with the devil's tail and catching the dark shape in its vacuum-like beam. No sooner than he picked it up he yelled to the other cop, "Get Growlithe back to headquarters-----" He faced the approaching onslaught of hunters, their collective cries playing a baneful tune. God, this was cray. Nuts. In all his years on the force, he never had to deal with anything like this.  
  
He had about six PokéBalls and sixty Pokémon coming at him, none of them searching for a master.  
  
It was then it dawned on him that they WERE going to need help.  
  
He had his hand on his radio but hesitated to switch it on. If the Shin-Ra were going to cause a bigger mess, then why do it?  
  
Yeah...they could take this alone. That was their job, right? In the end, it was to keep the town safe, and right now it was anything but that.  
  
He leaned foward and threw the Ball into the shapeless mass of mutants that scattered, their individual outlines becoming clear and more hideous as each vile feature was far more pronounced. He threw three at once in a panic, the random projectiles spurring an equine to break free of the tangle of mutants.  
  
It sprinted in erratic strides, lost, mad, saddened, as it neared in a blurring gallop, he thought maybe it was a Rapidash-- but the way its eyes were, a bloody red, masked with serpentine scales, the way it bore its teeth made for slicing and tearing rather than chewing and grinding, its hooves made for gouging instead of crushing, and the churn of its horn..... as if perpetually on Horn Drill---it couldn't be.  
  
The dark shape flew by him, the frozen wind that blew on his skin forcing the hair on hs neck's back to stand. The drill's whir rapidly abated, but he froze as if it didn't miss, and ran him through. The temporary paralysis gripped his brain as well, blanking his mind, making him forget that there was the Ultra Ball rocking in his pocket, its prisoner vying for liberty, pounding, clawing, doing all in its waning power to escape.  
  
In this case, it was mind over matter. The Ball slid, rolled, and practically jumped from the cop's pocket, hurtling towards the asphalt and making the black puddle jump with its force. The impact triggered the two halves to break open and release its demonic contents, spilling them on the hard asphalt. Those few seconds in the Ball drove it wild with lust, and the human completely failed to see, his attention directed on the mutant crowd, flinging several more PokéBalls at the onrushing crowd, capturing one or two that did not deter the others. So focused on this, but disregarding the black shape crouched in front of him.  
  
He finally switched the radio on and talked in fragments, no longer caring if he was aiming and where he was aiming. "-----Situation's getting out of control--" He wavered again. Once he made the call, the deal was sealed: headquarters'd get reinforcements from the army, and the army'd get Shin-Ra involved, them directly linked.  
  
What else was there to do? He eventually charged blindly ahead and half-buried any regret under the knowledge these monsters wouldn't overrun the island.  
  
"----About sixty of 'em, need backup at--" All of a sudden the tenor of his voice blew into wild panic. The dark shape stared at his neck and licked the red off its lips. It lunged. There was a yell of unbridled terror that mangled the incompleted word, a splash and clatter as the radio fell from a hand that whitened, unclenched, and finally dangled at his side, emptied of its life force. The body fell with a thud. Its killer walked from the corpse, convinced it had been enough.....but the lust had become stronger, more manifested.....  
  
The excess blood out of the reach of his tongue dripped down his chin, leaving its mark in the black puddles. Desperate for more blood, he dunked his face in the Black Rain, searching for the red liquid but finding it evenly mixed. He had not the time nor the means to chemically separate them..... With a dismal growl he darted across the puddles towards the building not thirty feet away.  
  
In the building there was a light. Light brought the promise of human blood. And in order to obtain it...he would have to pass through it... Painful, but if it would enable him to survive, the blood would be worth stumbling blindly with eyes that roasted in the light.  
  
With that resolve, he approached the next target.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Brock and Misty re-materialized in the midst of the mutant fray, the former falling on his knees from the over-exertion, staring at the wet asphalt that returned the bleary glance. But there was no time to linger. Not here.  
  
Misty shoved through the primal crowd, seeming to forget that she was a Gyarados, unmindful of the fact that the lesser animals scurried out of the way of its tramping claws. But she didn't think that. She was a human searching for survivors of her kind, as well as their Pokémon. But these horrifying monsters that now swamped her hometown---they weren't Pokémon. They_couldn't be.  
  
There was one of the monsters following them. She could hear its galloping tread. Must be a horse. But no time to look back. Keep looking foward. That's where the people were. The ones they were trying to save. People she knew. This was her home. She was going to defend it no matter what.  
  
The horse continued to tail them, a constant drilling noise driving them towards the lit gym. With a hopeful cry she threw herself down the broad street, running as fast as the form permit her. She was painfully aware of how difficult it was--- her leg muscles didn't move the way they used to---they were stiffer-----like iron or steel or some other metal...everything felt heavier.. She didn't go as fast as she ran as a human..... Something told her that maybe she wasn't meant to run at all. Gyarados crawl, don't they? They weren't supposed to have arms and legs. What was she supposed to do with arms and legs if she wasn't supposed to have them?  
  
Run. Run like hell. Adrenaline demanded her to--dread hastened her delayed movemnts. Though unconscious of it, her body pushed her to adapt and ordered her to succumb to gravity.  
  
The laws of nature intoned in distinct voices that conveyed an unmistakable meaning in the form of signals through the nervous system. Soon only her subconscious knew that she was running on all fours, nearing closer to the light that seeped out of the glass doors covered in black beads that left transluscent trails of grey when they rolled off the vertical surface and left lumps of rain at the door's foot.  
  
The grey sea monster stopped at the door, becoming two-legged again with frustrating effort as she used the door for balance that normally she would've taken for granted. She wasn't graceful or anything, but clumsy? No way.  
  
But as a Gyarados...fat chance! She wasn't a Gyarados. As far as she was concerned, she was a human trapped in a Pokémon's body---she wasn't about to go bust down the door of what formerly was HER gym--- though that was the easiest way to do it-- She would enter it as normal---as possible---so what if her claws slipped and left three obvious etchings in the door? She wasn't breaking it down like an enraged Pokémon! Because she wasn't one, she was a person, she was Misty.  
  
A steady drip of Black Rain brought the chemical from the outside into the gym, spreading its wavy trail as the two creatures ran through the front hall, the scuffle of their clawed feet on the undifferentiated floor tiles signalling to any human their unwanted presence...  
  
If there were any humans to be wary of them... The droplets of blood that flecked the base of the wall, the front desk, the portrait of a Dewgong, a spectator lying face-down at the junction---that made the fear real, tangible. It wasn't just in her mind. The killer wanted blood. And as her eyes ran up the wall past the Dewgong portrait and to a flyer:  
  
Marine Showcase starring the Sensational Cerulean Sisters! One Day Only! Buy your tickets today!  
  
Lily....  
  
Daisy...  
  
Violet..  
  
Misty broke for the gym. It would be packed, a full house, standing room only---God, they'd all be dead--  
  
She could imagine the wild cheers transform into wild shrieks.  
  
They both bolted, both wary of the galloping tread that didn't let up behind them, the hooves that drove into the floor, breaking pieces of the tile every time it touched ground, and the horn, still whirring, like someone coming at them with a drill. It gave them all the more reason to run until their lungs burst.  
  
And when she reached the stadium, the dread enveloped her throat, suddenly raw and parched.  
  
A deliberate rip in the ceiling poured with cascades of rain. The pool in the center of the gym was flooded in the dark liquid, bloodless bodies decorated the bleachers with festive death, wholly drained, their skin as pale as the white moon gradually revealing itself above, sending beams of the sun's reflected light towards the dark shape in the center of the pool on one of the floating blocks. The shape...it was the thing that looked like Brock. It fiddled with her mind..she knew which was which, who was who, but now in the light--it was entirely visible....if she didn't know that Brock was behind her, with fanged mouth partially agape, his knuckles greying while the fists clenched and unclenched---she would have though that Brock murdered the entire city.  
  
Whatever lingering doubt she had, the dangerous voice confirmed that whatever did this wasn't Brock.  
  
I believe the craving is fulfilled...Drops of red blood dripped from the tips of its fangs, their drop against the black liquid inaudible amidst the drilling noise that, though producing a greater din, fell on deaf ears. The creature clutching the floating block gestured with claws that bore his guilt to the bleachers filled with pierced corpses, a scowl of disgust distorting his face. What a waste of life..they would have served as excellent specimens---  
  
Misty's skin paled to a lighter grey as she stood there, gazing at the bodies-out for a good time-----that's all it was.....The shocked flashes of teal lowered from the bleachers, across the tiles littered in----Dewgong and Seel, their skin pierced at the neck----they were in the pool, too, droplets of the remnant of the downpour trickling on their face-down bodies.  
  
To think the last time she was here, everything was alright...her sisters were teasing her about being the youngest, annoying her to no end though they were kin anyway------  
  
For a split-second she could've sworn her heart stopped beating. The dark shape had another body entrapped in his scaled arms. Tall, lanky----but who it was--she didn't know until it twisted its malformed body around, bringing a white form to light. It withdrew one of its arms to clamp the surface, causing its head to droop over the dark water, its neck baring two holes, its long hair hanging down in waves, disappearing beneath the flowing surface, and its white visage.....  
  
Misty's heart fell into her stomach churning with a turbulent nausea.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The Shin-Ra conference room did not lose its air of luxury when it changed location. If anything, it grew more grandiose. The frail architect was paid handsomely to not only design the chamber in accordance with the original, but enact modifications that drove the expenses to ridiculous heights. This expenditure wasn't entirely for visual appeasement, but a sort of snob treatment to any Vermillionite or Saffronian that was granted an audience with them for potential business deals. A parade of power, if anything, that kept them in their place. A carry-over from the old administration that Rufus had no intention of altering. Despite his lengthy speeches about the ideal method of rule: by fear, he didn't mind indulging the company, or himself, for that matter.  
  
In that way, he was not unlike his old man. However, the late President Shin-Ra didn't insist on arming the building that heavily, since the youth had no qualms about spoiling elegance to ensure his dominance, to make sure they knew who was in charge. For most of the time, it worked. No sane individual dared to question its policies, blinded by ignorance or inhibited by fear---the former tactic more utilized by the elder Shin-Ra, though Rufus wasn't above steeping the public in partial ignorance, for that held the key to power as well.  
  
Power...control...claiming superiority over others---what was that kind of power compared to a realized strength that rivalled a lesser physical power that hid behind a shield of control---but where was that control, now? Shin-Ra controlled the city, but did they control the jungle, field, lake, river, and mountain?  
  
Perhaps. With contracts, deeds, documents of the sort-----but could they claim to be above the life that now clambered across them, searching for an answer to their plight, or satisfaction for their hunger?  
  
Whether it was correct ethically, they did. They claimed power over their lives, judgement over their existences. For now, Shin-Ra and everything else diverged from the other even more so, Shin-Ra rising in its own eyes infinitely higher.  
  
It had always been, hadn't it? Above all, through careful manipulation of a too-trusting system, bribing, bending the regulations a bit, and the company was untouchable. Specifically the higher-ups. They could afford to live in mental security, because the company would cover up for them, as long as it was no inside plot. They knew they were safe hiding behind Shin-Ra's shield.  
  
But now...uncertainty spread itself thick as the lazy smoke from the discarded cigar in the gold-plated ashtray rolled upward in a vaporous column, partially obscuring the rotund face of Heidegger, flushed red with cheap wine, his dark brown whiskers hiding whatever expression he had from his less rotund, but stumpier fellow executive, downing a mug of strong coffee that, for whatever reason, didn't work for him this time. You could say he wanted to lose himself, get so wired he forgot where he was, and forget himself entirely. Being naturally hyperactive, that shouldn't be so hard to do, but the silent suspicions in the air, expressed now and then by an impatient banging on the table by Heidegger and his own twitchiness. Tension didn't disperse with the hanging smoke. Crisis reared beneath the shadows.  
  
Exactly what it was, he had no idea. He'd come here, springing with giddy step towards the building, completely unmindful of the lurking beasts in the dark, cheerfully waddling to the board room. It was now six hours or so later. Heidegger had walked in behind him, with the pompous air of someone who had just beat someone----Nothing surprising about that. A violent death that left the body mangled, a quick and hurried reanimation that didn't hide the scars, landing him in a worse mood, and well..... Most of Heidegger's subordinates knew what was coming when the president criticized him.  
  
But now the president wasn't here. Now that it came to him, the attendance was low to the point of ridiculousness. His puny eyes buried in pounds and pounds of fat ran over the empty executive seats, resting particularly on the one at the table's head, unfilled by the presence that in a way, dominated all of them. It wasn't such a big deal personally to Palmer: with the way the president had been acting, he would've liked to avoid him---he scared easily and wanted to avoid trouble as much as possible---- but in all practicality, the president surely had to be at the meeting--he wasn't just the presider, but the one who decided every motion---and in a crisis as terrible as this, whatever it was, he really should be here...It WAS an emergency meeting after all, after Scarlet had declared it as such, amid a fit of hysteria...it was a sight, that's for sure----she stormed in and out raving about a "disgusting freak", "AVALANCHE at it again", and something about a "no-wit boy scout". She hadn't come back since. So much for her.  
  
Endowed with the fire of spontaneity, the tiny eyes moved rather randomly from the president's seat to the other vacant positions---which would've been occupied by----that mousy fellow, Reeve, and the ancient scientist. In a darting hunch, he wondered if they'd fallen victim to whatever was happening---who could tell, maybe even-----the president himself got wrapped up in all this? At that musing Palmer laughed at himself. He was much too good for that.....in his mind, problems of the ordinary world just didn't affect someone like Rufus Shin-Ra. Maybe the other two---maybe that's why they were missing, but Rufus? He didn't think so.  
  
A shrill snarl that showed no effort to be contained sounded behind the polished oaken door that rattled with an audible thud, stirring Palmer from his roundabout musings.  
  
The heavy door flung open, revealing a livid Scarlet that crossed towards the executive table, the clack of her high heels muffled in the luxurious carpet. She sidled towards her vacant chair, her plucked eyebrows slanted over slightly reddened eyes that bore the irritation of expecting a three-week vacation and finding yourself facing a problem that would keep you up for days. With a tight exhale of breath she took her seat, massaged her temples with her fifth finger, took the other hand and reached for a cigarette, lit up, and added to the dispersing hills of smoke with a new eruption. She spoke between lightly clenched teeth that rubbed against each other, producing a squeak that could be heard across the room that overlapped into her irritated tone.  
  
"Okay, gentlemen. I just talked to the so-called lieutenant of the Kanto army---it took some prying to find out what the deal is-" she added, before tossing the cigarette in the tray with a flick of her hand-----"He first didn't want to spill, but we forced it out of him. He has a lot of balls, trying to stand up to Shin-Ra like that. We're the ones that supply him his men, for crying out loud!" she screamed in a mixture of aggravation and triumph, her shrill voice swelling to a piercing shriek. She indulged in her familiar laugh as she expanded quickly, "---but he has all balls, no brains. Just one threat to his 'Raichu' and we had him talking." She gave a belittling smirk of haughty superiority. "Sentimental bumpkins." The executive rose from her seat and glided to the front wall, an evident gravity marking more cautious movements. "But their information's worth it. He said there was a crisis. Big one."  
  
"Crisis?" Heidegger bellowed, fury reddening his bulging face, the hairs of his generous beard bristling with rage. "After Meteor, nothing's a crisis! And if he thinks he's getting more SOLDIERs to save a few worthless lives when they're supposed to be stationed at Lavender, he's asking the wrong man!!" he roared with surpising sobriety across the table. Besides---" His weighty fist shook its carved legs as he pounded the top, consumed with hilarity at the absurdity ---as far as Shin-Ra was concerned, the Kanto army was a complete joke. The navy....forget it, and the air force...practically non-existent. "Don't tell me he's getting all worked up about that incident----"  
  
"The fire in Viridian," Scarlet finished, veiling her private disgust towards the Turks' boss. Thick as mud. Though it's not like both of them were jumping at the disaster. She would've overlooked it too, had she not read the report. It wasn't any ordinary fire, but caused by a freak of nature like the one she saw in the sink while touching up her mascara----It came right out of the DRAIN, squealing, clawing on the faucet-----She smothered the memory and brought down a screen with a set of controls on the wall. "That wasn't just a fire, Heidegger. Why'd you think Surge asked the President for men instead of leaving it to the fire department and riot police? Because there was a MONSTER on the loose, that's why!" A small beep, the screen lowered with a quiet whir, and burst into light. "And these-----" She searched for a word to describe it., mouthing every sort of abomination that came to her head, before deciding that they COULDN'T be described------" aren't anything like that egg Tseng bounced out."  
  
Heidegger took another drag of the shortened cigar, his massive belly shaking in the fit of roaring laughter, the braying and bleating and whinnying he was famed throughout Shin-Ra for.. Scarlet returned glee with a glare, tuning the device to one of the airborne security cameras that prowled the city. Her voice morphed into a caustic growl. "See for yourself and see if you're still laughing afterward."  
  
The screen burst into a grating din that filled the room's four corners, the smoke not heavy nor thick enough to block their view of the grim image set forth..  
  
A climax of a warped nightmare. That's all it could be. Everything SEEMED normal enough--- no colossal earthquake had tipped the buildings----- No flood had drowned the city---no fire had scorched all to the rocks---yes, it was raining hard---the sidewalks below were nearly indiscernable from the streets, there were a few garbage cans afloat---- And most noticeable, they couldn't see through the rain. It hailed night, the sky plumetting in drops of unhesitant liquid which only partially obscured the creatures scaling up and down the walls of buildings, monstrous railing matching the wretched 'cries of the Planet' that were so often talked of by the canyon folk but hardly taken seriously by urbanites such as themselves...  
  
At any rate, a grim spectacle. The three executives beheld, pale, combatting fear-stricken nerves, these solid spectres, more hideous than the roaming monsters on Gaia, making ears scream and bleed with their unearthly commotion, a plea from another world, wholly separate, wholly apart, an Otherworld that consumed what they knew as reality.  
  
While her peers gaped and sweated, Scarlet gave a light smirk at the plan of action that she managed to wrangle out of Surge. Second-hand information from a Cerulean cop.  
  
She made no effort to contain herself: then and there she burst into cruel laughter at their childish attempts... Really, they were kids with lots of vision and no pragmatism.. To think that the local police intended to stop this on their own---the beat cops that toted low-caliber pistols and revolvers,and, of all things, PUPPIES. Not even dogs. Puppies. And with a force consisting about 20 per each city, they marched out to catch 'em all to keep the freaks intact and massacre themselves. Uh-huh. Right.  
  
No-brained hicks, she thought derisively, muting the TV that still flashed the images of the city-turned-zoo, the evil forms of the animal shapes crossing through this absolute night The other executives were transfixed by the images, neither making a comment, unable to do little more than offer a blank stare.Heidegger had stopped laughing, perspiration clinging to the hairs on his beard. The WEAPON incident, that was a bit more than routine. He and Scarlet were confident that Meteor would die along with Sephiroth. This rattled him, his confidence, and dented it with a ferocious blow.  
  
The deafening clamor ceased.  
  
"What do you propose we do about this?" the woman asked with shifting eyes, turning into an acid glare as Palmer's lower jaw descended, about to open his mouth. He didn't even have to talk for her to know what he was going to say. It was the same thing every meeting, every chance he got to whine about his obsolete department. "Shut it, Palmer," came the piercing command. His jaw wavered, answered by a hostile rebuke. "The Space Program is DEAD, okay? Let the Weapons Department handle this."  
  
Palmer half-slouched, half-reclined in his seat again, dry lips forming a sulking pout in his flabby visage that sort of receded into the background, as if it wasn't even there. He really didn't expect any different...he'd been useless for years. Shin-Ra 026's launch marked the Space Program's definite end.  
  
Why Rufus allowed him to stay on his staff was a mystery even to him. Virtually, the number of executives had shrunk down to two. The extra one holding his coffee mug upside-down over his tongue was a do-nothing to even everything out, to make it balanced, add symmetry. Let Heidegger and Scarlet have their dual monarchy. He was there to sit and look pretty.  
  
Dual monarchy? That's what they expected. Already having the taste of power and relishing it, not even Heidegger, seemingly servile in Rufus' shadow, questioned where he was at the moment. At this point, he didn't give a damn. The President was gone, he must be dead again, now it was their turn to rule, though both posessing monstrous egos, they believed they ruled it individually, the masters of their own world, each one a worthy sucessor to the Shin-Ra throne..  
  
But the youth was unwilling to relinquish his power...  
  
A sleepless tail half-covered in the replacement trenchcoat deposited hair from the elevator's entrance to where it wound in a repeating coil, leaving its individual bits of orange and brown a visible trail. Unconscious of everything else but the conversation radiating from the conference room-----ignoring the conspicuous whir of a vacuum, a custodian's scream, his panicked flight, and other voices more indistinct. The fur continued to mark its embarassing path. But...less aware of the humiliating fact that he shedded than he was of his subordinates' conversation, the majority of which he caught with readied ears.  
  
"..Ditch that---cannon.... backfired on---President------smash all...another Proud Clod!"  
  
"...Don't forget---Shin-Ra army. -----whole thing----- over----- tomorrow."  
  
"---hit them----everything."  
  
"Agreed---huh?" Scarlet discarded the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray and poked her pointed chin upwards. There was a click from the doorknob...apparently whoever was less than fashionably late finally decided to get in here. She began to drum her fingers on the table's smooth surface in aggravated rythym, preparing a biting insult to hurl at the late board member. After what seemed like an extended and prolonged hour, the doors swung open with unusual momentum, ramming the walls before returning halfway to their closed position, failing to conceal the monstrosity that commanded the doorway.  
  
A brown and orange creature in the President's shoes, slacks, turtleneck, and white trenchcoat marched confidently inside, its narrow eyes gleaming with a disapproving frown. Needless to say, none of them saw the expression as its human meaning..it could easily have been a predator readying to strike.. At once Scarlet paled, her voice suddenly wavering and the clear commands lapsing into stutters. "S-someone c-call security and get rid of that THING!!!"  
  
The aforementioned "thing" scowled with expected disgust, closed the door with its paw as gingerly as a beast as large as him could manage, and answered Scarlet's demand with a feline growl that stayed anyone who even DARED to carry it out.  
  
May I remind you that this 'thing' can make or break you.  
  
The mental speech that reverberated through the chamber identified it as a thing apart form an ordinary animal. Though none of the executives were certain about the voice's source--how it could be talking without moving its lips was beyond their understanding, they were certain that their president was among them----the tone fringed by icicles embedded in sheets of solid ice---it was unmistakably Rufus.  
  
In the likeness of a cat?  
  
Heidegger began to open his mouth, but whatever readied in it fell short as the freak of nature began to stalk towards him. You will take much care in respecting my authority-----in this form, I am no longer bound by the niceties of man. A feral snarl that killed all thought of rebellion, returning Heidegger at once to his subservient attitude, leading Rufus to mentally nod at this change of heart, satisfied with his clumsy stammering and his unsightly salute.  
  
"Y--yes, o-of course, Mr. P-President!!"  
  
That's why animals of prey became so efficient in their gory tasks, yes? The power of threat, though it may be false, conjures fear. Rufus knew this and used it.  
  
The giant cat walked confidently to the head of the table and seated himself, placing his front paws----though they smelled clean from the bath, to the executives, dirty and foul. Somehow, Rufus sensed this..... it couldn't be that they STILL thought him as low as his condition...! Hadn't he THREATENED  
  
them with a brutal death that overstepped his own tendency to save face? Did his position mean nothing now that he was what he was? No..that couldn't be... That WOULDN'T be. He would FORCE them to respect the fact that he was their EMPLOYER. Infuriated at the unwanted challenge, the claws suddenly contracted. and the president bore the sharp-edged canines as he "spoke" in a tenor quite less heated than it had been earlier.  
  
I believe you were about to come to a decision about how to deal with the population explosion of---  
  
"Circus freaks," Palmer whimpered, slumping behind his chair, sinking to half his normal height for fear of gazing upon the wrathful cat. Accordingly, Rufus shot him an ablaze glare that would freeze a wildfire in its scorching path.  
  
Which just as quickly calmed. Yes..I do not mind you expending the Shin-Ra army's maximum resources...The sooner this matter is settled, the better....He blinked his eyes slowly, the hidden globes of an unshackled fury not mollifying the hideousness of the thing that claimed to be their president.  
  
He locked his canines together, his mouth a forest of razor-edged teeth. .However, I DO mind that you did not wait for my approval OR affirm what can be exterminated and what must be undamaged---He paused momentarily, confirming that the three humans in the room had heeded him and showed no signs of rebelling. It seemed as if they took his meaning. Intimidation was a useful skill. .....the four that escaped from the laboratory: they are to be captured, not destroyed. Everything else, kill as you will. He shifted in his chair, the damned tail squeezing behind his back---otherwise, no loss of dignity...he was certain he conducted himself with every ounce of etiquette and politeness he was reared with. There was simply no possible way that they could deny his superiority. And if they did, he knew the other method of persuasion, one not so proper, but fit his intentions..... and the propensities of his current form.  
  
So reliant on this fantasy was he that he was stunned by Scarlet's snap of sarcasm that cut deep into his soaring pride.  
  
"Is there anything else you want done, Your Majesty?" she sneered with the light of revolt burning in her face.  
  
The small taste of absolute reign was all she needed to lust for it indefinitely.  
  
.Yes, believe it or not, came the angered reply, the fury so great that it nearly drove him to claw through the table. But the seemingly invincible will restrained him, an invisible leash that he was impatient to shake off.  
  
The cat's eyes, gleaming globes with a slit pupil that divided the frozen iris, rendered ferocious by the whites of the eye that were consumed in the hue of orange: burning ice burning in a burning blaze. This ferocity roved in a vertical line until it was parallel with Scarlet's, as if daring her to walk a step further on thin ice ready to crack. I want Hojo and Reeve arrested on charges of treason, and your insubordination left at home. Do I make myself clear? The cat's entire form stabbed through his executive's eyes, a warning growl making her nerves shake beneath a snide exterior.  
  
Rufus stood from his chair, glaring into the emptiness of his authority.  
  
Meeting adjourned, came the aggravated growl, shooting to a roar when they showed evident hesitation. But this would change. He WOULD be obeyed..if not, he would turn this beauracracy into a monarchy. It was that simple.  
  
The executives filed out of the board room, two of them secretly pining over their lost chance for absolute control. The hairy obstacle had abruptly presented itself, a well-groomed, pleasant-smelling hulk of fur and teeth..a beast claiming to be Shin-Ra's president. How preposterous..it was unheard of! A cat, giving them orders, threatening their lives---it was bearable when he was human, IF he was human, but now he was an animal. An animal, that couldn't even SPEAK, wielding higher authority than they, who were HUMAN BEINGS.  
  
IT.... would be better off being the object of marvel at a circus, not the chief executive of an electric company.  
  
The whole thing was ridiculous. What was on their agenda that a CAT laid out for them as if he owned them? Orders to the SOLDIERs, orders to the mechanics, and a trip to the pet store for a milkbowl, collar, and a basket. A personalized tag. Maybe a litterbox. A yarn ball---  
  
Who am I kidding? Scarlet asked herself with her pallid fists clenched at her broad hips that swayed with defiant resolution. Those items are for HOUSECATS. That thing is NOT a housecat, more of a lion missing its mane. Without it, acting as if he were a king. With it, who would he think he was? A god, maybe? Leave the god thing to Sephiroth, but the conceited bastard would think himself pretty close to it.  
  
The elevator halted with its usual "ding" on the--what was it? Thirty-seventh floor? Ugh.. The smell of burned metal and formaldehyde ignored the doors and passed right through it.  
  
Lions...It crossed her conniving brain suddenly. Where do you keep lions?  
  
It dawned on her a brilliant golden sunrise over Mt. Corel.  
  
This was the floor with the labs....of course..why not? Easy......it tempted her---She exited the doors. They stayed open behind her, thinking and deciding. Maybe Rufus' final grand departure wasn't too far off. They'd believe her. This was routine for them. They'd want a new study, some stupid slab of meat they could run their tests..why not the only obstacle to absolute control?  
  
The heightened odor irritated her nostrils and her walk quickened to catch less of the overwhelming stink, coming from the ugly pile of burnt wreckage that was left of the lab, guarded by broken yellow tape that several assistants ignored, passing in and out of the dark lab. Scarlet followed them into the musty blackness, a uniform void made irregular by the outlines of jagged heaps of ruined equipment.  
  
The unbearable smell quickly enhanced with unbearable noise. Some cautious-looking asistants entered from the lab's north side, wheeling empty cages past the yellow tape and into the unpiercable darkness, dodging the mounds of burnt equipment that heaped mounds and hills in the once impressive-looking facility. Her temptation driving her, Scarlet peered into the dark lab from the lighted area-the fire shorted out the lights in the lab only, and not its entryway. Everything beyond that showered in obscurity. But the lack of light didn't mute voices. She could hear one giving orders to the others-----the older one must have been a peer that was insane enough to still work with that old prune---  
  
There was her chance. She could inform him of the situation, the lion would promptly be caged, Rufus' disappearance could be covered up by some make-believe story, and it would all be done and over with. There. One crisis down. Then she and Heidegger could wipe them all out the only way they knew how: with brute force.  
  
It was a seething fear that prevented her from squealing. Fear of the beast's retaliation. Though it was a cat, it was intelligent---it WAS Rufus, after all. He was a cunning man. It must have been a cunning cat.But...her plan had no holes. It had to work. Shin-Ra wouldn't find out. The lab boys would make sure of that. She'd heard stories about the labs..the most affluent men that were influential enough to combat Shin-Ra's policies, political prisoners, P.O.Ws during the Shin-Ra-Wutai War, dangerous criminals---public enemies--they were never heard of again.  
  
The plot unravelled in its simplistic elegance. The science department would jump at the chance, she was sure of it. Laughter broke from her cruel lips. Let Heidegger think that facing its fury wasn't worth it. Do what you're told until the time is right. She'd take the chance.  
  
Besides, someone had to carry out Rufus' orders in the meantime, eliminating those other freaks out there...to lessen damage costs, prevent an all-out rebellion, and make sure Shin-Ra was still in the peoples'--- and more importantly, the lousy excuse for a 'government's'---favor.  
  
With a lightness in her step, Scarlet approached the stocky outline of the assistant, his hard, wrinkled features suddenly visible as a glowing flame sparked from an emerald stone embedded in a device in his rather broad hand, illuminated by the fire as well as something else, a faint trickle of energy that flared about his form, the presence of which filled her with a vague apprehension. Something told her that she would regret dealing with this man. In some inexplainable way, he reeked of the devil.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED......  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 25, where another city bites the dust, the mysterious Pokémon that was following Misty and Brock reveals itself, Cid gets a rude awakening, and he clashes with Red and Vincent once again, and---things die. ^^ 


	25. One Head Is Better Than Two

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Hello! Here's chapter 25. ^_^ And no intro, unfortunately. ;_;  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 25: One Head is Better than Two  
  
*~*~*  
  
The coarse-scaled heap of dangling limbs locked in disbelief of what it had just witnessed. On it latched doubt, stopping its cold blood so it stooped unmoving on the slippery edge fringed with smears of the fluid that settled in stagnation behind and beyond it, a static nothingness that offered its grim silence...a chilly quietude which from dubious growls that escaped her betrayed her dread..Scared her more than the screams, because the silence dried her throat and made the growls weak whispers that choked in a tangle of cracked hoarseness. A groaning breath came with wrenching effort and in faint bursts, an unseen weight crushing against her chest.  
  
These sparse signals of (sorrow?)..... Only another sign that a week before she had her orange-red hair and her skin wasn't grey mottled with green on the chest and the ends on the tail that wasn't there before---  
  
The point was she still remembered. Once you forgot, it was easier, then you confused in your mind the day of the Change--all the human aspirations crumbled into debris and there was nothing left but the animal that never was man---it was too soon for Misty. She hadn't repelled her human instincts--- --screw instinct, it was familial love, no matter how much they teased her, made fun of her---they were still sisters.  
  
That bated the resentment building up in her all those times..she didn't feel for her the way siblings were meant to. Their relationship was forever conditional. Do this and we'll help you. Do that and we'll help you. Do this 'cause we told you. It pissed her off, that they took advantage of her, but they were still family.  
  
That made her ask the sleeping gulf.  
  
This is just another joke, isn't it, Lily? Misty questioned in the mental voice that she couldn't hear, involuntarily coupling it with incohrent growls that she couldn't understand. Too bad that Misty forgot about the barrier between monster and man.... It was near impenetrable. Or maybe she didn't..she just didn't want to acknowledge that it was there, that it existed...didn't want to accept that the same bar that had kept her apart from Brock now kept apart her from her own kin.  
  
She growled with a flicker of frustration at the white shape sprawled against infinity.  
  
"Grrrrrrarrrghhh.....?!" Lily! Stop pulling my leg!  
  
This isn't funny, you know! The snarl of half-hearted annoyance morphed into one of redoubled doubt when silence's murmur answered her coarse growls. Lily..?  
  
She plunged into the murk of the unhampered obscurity and submerged herself under the penetrating film, Brock's repeated attempts to make her understand the grim truth she scrambled. The mental telepathy failed to reach its mark, failing to permeate a clouded mind racked with denial clashing with hope.  
  
A harmless threat that fear spawns.  
  
You'll be sorry, Lily!! Stop faking!!  
  
Not going to carry it out, only the fiercer way of expressing concern that hides a warmheartedness under a slim crust of hostility. The mark of a hothead with a large heart.  
  
She crawled along the bottom, not swam, through the distressingly unfamiliar waters of the gym pool that a short time ago would've been something near home, feeling through a collecting cloud of darkness that spread from the surface.  
  
Maybe she was pulling a trick. They were like that, her sisters. They liked to tease her, sometimes trick or use her if they needed a favor...in her mind that was enough to make her believe that Lily was only pretending to be....dead?  
  
Her body shook with a violent roar of denial that scared her with its ferocity.  
  
Don't THINK like that!!  
  
She didn't notice. She was mired in her optimism. It likes to console with lies. So they'll be calm. They won't fear 'cause they'll believe it. Kids are optimistic. They believe lies. Misty was really only a kid.  
  
A mutated Gyarados that used to be a girl, but still a kid.The ugly head of the child emerged from the surface at the wall, made more hideous with the rivulets carving on her face, indented with hollow channels below monstrous eyes that glided searchingly along the surface that it should've been able to traverse with ease. But it wasn't like that. Like a creature owned by neither land nor sea but in between. What Gyarados was never supposed to be: in transition. It mastered the ocean and easily traversed the shore, while its head walked abreast with the clouds. But this one was clumsy on land, in the water, rapid with some vague semblance to dexterity only with head at the earth. Maybe she mastered the mud.  
  
But she was stubborn. Limitations? Obstacles? She was the ocean at its stormiest. They were the shoreline in her way. What do you MEAN I can't swim?  
  
I was BORN to swim! Don't tell me I can't, she growled at herself, at that part of her sinking into the hideous shadow.  
  
Sinking in the shadow and sinking in the murk. And as she let go of the wall and thrashed to keep herself from sinking, the farther the white shape floated, leaving her moored in her frustration, treading water like a drowning man, hurling the roughened roar that didn't help any more than flailing.  
  
It's no use.  
  
. Faintly she felt Brock's gaze on her scales immersed in the coating liquid. She'd seen the look before, not often, but enough to recognize it,, a somber respect for the dea-----stop staring like that, Brock..The unaccepting gaze through the wall of bounding droplets soared in its adamancy. You know how she is---she's faking it all---she's trying to trick me---!  
  
He hated to say it like this. God knew how hard it was for him to bear it, for weeks now, can't stand to look into a fire because he'd see Cindy and Tommy and everyone in his head dying over and over again. He didn't want to tell his friend.... But Lily was dead as could be. He knew it. She knew it. No use denying it anymore. No use risking life and limb to "swim" to the deepest part of the pool to check if a dead body's dead. He gripped the cement with waiting claws, then drew back.  
  
Let her know for herself, he coaxed himself, crouched at the poolside, half-squatting, prepared to lunge in case that damned scientist had anticipated this and overpowered the powerhouse. He'd seen it before. It happened to him, for Christ's sakes. A few words and he'd be cowering, bastard could find a way to bleed a heart until it was parched as Azalea. Could worm his way out of anything.  
  
The ends of the fangs glistened with crimson, staining the air in iron.  
  
Misty burrowed across the water, calling out the white shape's name, and was unanswered. Foot after painful foot ripped a wider wound in doubt. When she caught the edge of the floating block, avariciously swallowing lungfuls of lost air, she grabbed the woman with unintended roughness with the grimy pocket of her animal hand and gripped the arm harder than she would've wanted to, shaking the faced-up body watching the gigantic tear in the ceiling.  
  
Lily!! The game's up!!! Say something!!  
  
Her nerves sent her the weight of a lightened arm---it was all there and everything, but something was missing. That something made her blood freeze. Blood. That was it. Her skin paled to concrete-grey at the light arm---it was so white---like a..ghost..Her fears took a downward course. No longer doubt, she couldn't argue with it. She didn't have to look at those two holes in the neck to know where all the blood went.. She saw them, but with passing glance, removed, it didn't register. Her eyes were fixed on the demon hand clamped underneath Lily's elbow. That hand led to an arm connected with a chest below a neck under a head with mouth that had bloodied fangs. No doubt where the blood ended up. It was still dripping. Leaving globs of vermillion on Lily's shirt that the demon probably tore in its zeal.  
  
Misty's teal eyes flared with disbelief that hatred slowly overtook, the fire in the water, the magma melding with the ocean. That was a Gyarados' wrath. Not only branded Atrocious because of their hideousness, Gyarados were of vicious temperament. They were vengeful, had a high chance of going berserk, and were quick to hatred. How much more this monstrosity?  
  
So it was no surprise that the demonic shape stood completely unmoved while holding the white corpse, intently observing the building rage in the Gyarados' quaking body. The amount of blood at last quelling his need, he began to assume his own, indifferent persona... Quite easy when he had control of himself, when he actually felt that he remembered who he was..Elm had made it difficult, indeed...plaguing him with his specimen's behavioral patterns...nutritional requirements...Now more in control of his functions, Observing an affirmed discovery, typical behavior of one of his specimens...he began to think the whole ordeal was transient.. he almost..ALMOST...felt like he was human again.  
  
Now.....what is this?  
  
The clawed hands clasped habitually behind his back and he regarded the other monster with an analytical air, the grin of sadism twisting across his disfigured face as he watched the eyes hot with stone tears.  
  
I see you briefly exhibited a common human reaction...grieving like that...His deformed features twisted further in the grip of intense thought. Stained claws held his chin in narrow scrutiny, while the creature's building rage disappeared in sorrow and she sobbed on the bloodless arm, mournful, saddened, but to the untrained ear the language of menace....Perhaps...but it was plain to see, it felt sorrow ...Quite normal behavior for a Pokémon...ah, but aggressive Pokémon such as yourself recover quite quickly. The object of grievance within a few minutes enters the digestive tract...then it miraculously turns from a sibling into sustenance. I'm afraid I've left such a light meal for you...He gestured to the sprawled-over corpse, nudging it with a clawed foot.  
  
The tears hung at the base of the neck and multiplied no more. The brief moment of sorrow crawled into the recesses and paled next to the predominant reaction.  
  
"Grrrrr.....Raaaghhhhhh...!!!!!" I'd never eat Lily!!! she roared with indignance and shock that lightened her scales a shade more pallid: the shock of feeling her tongue across her broad underlip as she ripped a hungry gaze from the body. You're crazy!!!!!  
  
Mm? Perhaps, he agreed with the most pointed insincerity. We all must feed off one another to ensure survival...except for the autotrophs, of course. He narrowed a stare of malignant evil at the Pokémon, hit by a million forces at once, and leaving her too stunned to react to these carefully planned assaults.  
  
Only a matter of time before memory weakens, the bonds loosen.....Hojo unclasped his claws from the body and let it drop. Its fingers dangled void of life in the dark water that lapped over the ends. Primarily to hide the identity. The blood was taken, better forget about the victim before it etches itself in the brain.....there were never any regrets, no such thing.....  
  
The lapse broke this unseen barrier around Misty's emotions. No longer was there any hint of sorrow, true to his expectations-----her eyes instead bore anger, hatred...but rather than the instinctual hatred of Gyarados, it was another, more driven hatred.  
  
You_killed_Lily.....!!!  
  
He ran his sight over the perversion of nails, gleaming with drops and smears. Caught literally red-clawed. He bore a malicious smile into the creature's soul. You'll find it is no great loss to you in the end...don't you feel a sudden sensation.....of primal compulsions....that removes the familial connection? Don't you feel a desire for......A thin smirk divided his lower jaw. ...'Dinner'?  
  
I feel....The teal hue burst into a roaring blaze that threatened to explode from their sockets. Mad.... I'm MAD.....Why'd you have to kill her?..!! What sort of freak are you, drinking blood like that, making OTHER people drink blood---She whirled her tremoring body to gaze at Brock, silent, with a deadly air about him. ---Now you want me to EAT her?!  
  
Hojo had ignored the words and their meaning entirely, listening instead for the expected tone... yes...it was hateful...it was enraged...at him, that was somewhat unfortunate, but his predictions had been entirely correct. Satiated, he craned the demonic head towards the rage, lava about to spurt from a volcano's lip.  
  
Exactly according to previous studies..The fangs that Lily's blood coated in a bubbling film mocked, teased her more than her sisters ever would've done. And that she could forgive. It was annoying, she didn't like it, but it was about silly things, they manipulated and twisted things around, but they never hurt anyone, she'd forget it in the end. But the taunt before her eyes now, blood--her sister's blood---it was no joke. It made her hate. The nerves caught flame, the muscles unlocked, the perpetually agape jaw filled with an unbroken roar, seething with vile loathing.  
  
Yes, I see you despise me...  
  
I_HATE_you...  
  
Murder in the eyes. The wrath of Gyarados engulfed her purpose. Had she still been human, she would hate, but never desire to kill. She was wrathful, she was violent, but...take the bastard's life?  
  
It didn't matter, because Gyarados would.  
  
Hojo didn't have a chance to dodge the carnivorous fury of scales that smashed headlong into his shoulder with such force that it didn't matter that the spikes ripped through the flailing arm: it had ceased to feel it. No more screams of frantic hatred, as if Gyarados had stifled the one named Misty. Just the Gyarados' pure aggression, tremendous, unsparing, its roaring without thought, without care, its claws ripping apart the layer of dark scales with ablaze loathing.  
  
It didn't matter if the thing it was shredding looked like Brock. It knew, whatever it was, it was a monster..From the voice in ITS head, from ITS actions, IT wasn't Brock. Brock was a "him", a "one", not a "thing." Not a monster. A monster, that hurt him, her, and now its sister.  
  
You.....  
  
Forget hurt.  
  
....killed her..  
  
The dark shape thrashed in futility as the other monster hurled downward, smashing them both into the surface with a roaring crash. Whether by instinct, emotion, or cold logic, she embedded her claws into his shoulder blades, held his body down as both of them sank with weight, with rage enough to kill another, to drown him...so he'd die... he wouldn't kill any more of her sisters...  
  
The Black Rain was designed to unlock the cage that trapped the true essence. By alteration, return to the unaltered state.  
  
Pure......  
  
.....Untainted...  
  
....Unspoiled....  
  
Thus Hojo witnessed the complete result of the Order's experiment. The gained strength did nothing to protect him from the Gyarados' wrath. Thrash, Hyper Beam, Crunch, Slash, the two latter boosted forms of weak, ineffectual modes of defense and negligible means of attack. Oh, but how they had developed....he could attest to that. Black blood flowed freely with the rain that continued to weaken. A dying peal of thunder above the surface was lost amongst the roaring calamity.  
  
All the while, the two remaining women watched, hiding terrified in the bleachers-of both the thirsting monster and the enraged Gyarados that had disappeared in the water that rocked and tumbled with their struggle. And off at the side, Brock waited. An instinctual dread coiled itself around his muscles, tensed them, in animal vigilance.  
  
Gyarados battered the enemy mercilessly, each renewed wake coupled with a rending with a blood-drawing rake, maddening her with the flecks of crimson that hadn't been absorbed into the night river.  
  
. Murderer...!!!!  
  
The accusation was hate. It spewed out of her eyeballs, that could barely be called that, more of riptides and whirpools in the livid ocean. The livid ocean trying to devour a pesitlence in the earth, distanced from the shore, isolated and unchecked.  
  
Murderer, am I? came its hiss, choked with the dispersing liquid that cascaded in its mouth, the mad Gyarados unknowingly making it drink its own blood..... victory tasted rather bitter. Quite possible...these are my specimens' instincts... I have been punished with them...what more do you expect...?  
  
How sickeningly familiar...Had not another one of his specimens gone on its rampage at Pewter, slaughtered Gemini's brood, and was nearly destroyed by its avenger?  
  
Brock's clouded memory was a blur growing into a defined shape. He knew he didn't change at random. Something brought it on. Memory.....Getting reminded of a wretched labrat buried in the tangle of webs in his mind...... But which one?  
  
That rang the alarms in both his mind and Hojo's. The former... it was a vague alarm..that bane loomed....but what.....who...it was so hard to think. The damn Teleport...took every ounce of his ability..  
  
The other's was far more pronounced, clear because it triggered physical changes in his body, reaching as far as the genes. Results of the...."Improvements" that his former 'colleague' had made...murder, yes.....a rage induced by murder...He went down again......of family members.... The source of nourishment lingered on the surface.....the murder caused by predatory instincts.....survival.....feed....He had deprived her of life.....parallel to drink...His own rejuvenation rendered him the culprit...the nutrients from the blood.. Blood...of...subject's...family..drunk...akin...to murder...in.. ...victim's...view...Murder? Merely survival. In the perception of self. Survival of the fittest? She called it murder. Preposterous..... Murderer....he was only a predator because he was heteretrophic. Yes....a predator...no different than a murder...then, it was fact.....he was a murderer, he was a predator, he was...  
  
An enraged roar from the striking Gyarados and a wild roar from a waking beast coincided. The attacker missed and the target, on the point of drowning, ripped by the monster and emerged, choking and gasping in stifled hisses, reaching for the concrete edge, coated in the suffocating fluid. The points of his claws slipped and scraped.  
  
His fractious brain didn't hesitate to mimick his hands. And in this shift he wasn't quite aware that the mentality wasn't his own, that his own essence shrivelled in another's atmosphere.  
  
A human...yes, there will never be doubt, I am a human...Elected through birth to dominate Pokémon that exist for profit alone..Humans are born to dominate. It is merely the way of the world.  
  
Yelling bullshit, Brock observed with a half-snarl. But his drained mind wasn't long in remembering WHOSE bullshit that was. The black muscle in his chest beat coldly, chilled with a terror more acute in its familiarity.  
  
Don't tell me.....  
  
Damn it...Ivy...am I what you call me? A Pokémon? Is this my true name? But..it cannot be. I am the leader of Team Rocket---this CANNOT happen to ME-----  
  
Brock felt a swift electrocution of rapid dread.  
  
Sounds an awful lot like-----Jesus Christ...not HIM... Misty, STOP!  
  
The warning went unheeded. The Gyarados emerged from the surface adjacent to the wall to breathe. Furious heat collected in her jaws, shooting in a crushing beam that fell short of the fleeing target, shoved backwards by the wake it produced close enough for the vengeful Pokémon to attack. In its lunge simultaneously clumsy and deadly, flung its entire body weight on the monster, sending him under the liquid once more, pushing it down with her claws curving downward through pregnant blood vessels that had her sister's LIFE in it, cutting into the bone, its anguished roar drowned in the basic taste of Black Rain sliding down its throat, that was steadily becoming more acidic...the poison element filling his system as the one ammino acid took the place of another.  
  
The mess in the pool began to bubble as the twisting hulk of organic material began to increase in size, heaving the Gyarados closer to the surface, drowning its confused growls in the forming of layers and layers of hide and the anguished roars produced by the pain of muscles and bone reforming and expanding.The gurgling mass swelled from the center to half the pool's width, the reforming voice a burbling snarl that aggrandized into a full blown roar. A gargantuan tail lifted from the liquid that leaped in a wrecked wall, smashing into the bleachers and ripping a terrified roar from the Gyarados that only now realized that the rest of her family was hiding in them.  
  
He's going for both of them...  
  
Brock leaped nimbly up the bleachers shuddering from the force and grabbed Daisy and Violet, scared half to death by the scaled arms that wrapped them up tightly in an undefyable grip. It didn't help that the ferocious Gyarados, oozing with black grime that left a vibrating puddle on the metal, scaled the levels with a roar of panic easily confused for a hunger cry. She glanced at the demon, whose rapid rapid breathing signalling a dreading anxiety. He hadn't reached halfway down when the top of the back of the immense beast emerged from the dark film of fluid, and the acid in the jaws boiled in the heat that illuminated the beast's hideous muzzle..  
  
Misty..GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!  
  
The mental cry launched itself too late: a broiling fireball licked the surface of the Black Rain before colliding into Misty's spine, throwing her against the metal before she could dodge. The tremendous beast moved, the gleaming horn ascending with slow agony towards the clinging shape. Fearing the relentlessness of the monster she caught wind of the encroaching disaster and bolted lopsidedly from the bleachers to the slippery floor, the air surrounding her superheating as a Fire Blast burned into the cement.  
  
Brock.....Daisy, Violet....?...! she called out, encased in sweat from the heat and from terror, searching, dodging, crawling away from the monstrous inferno that roared thunder in her ears.  
  
It didn't stay a stagnant assault for long. The beast turned its head to the side, the greedy fire consuming the bleachers on one end. It wasn't until that it was halfway across the room in the fashion of a deadly pendulum that Brock leaped nimbly from the other end of the bleachers, landing in front of the flame small enough to jump..until he saw the fire stream move up, then down, catching the cement, the ceiling, moving unheeded though laboriously, in one unceasing wave that dazzled his eyes, blurred distances and it wasn't until it was directly above his head and already on its way down that he saw a safe gap. He could feel the fire bite at his shoulder as he leaped through the narrow space, tumbling out on the other side. Through the curtain of pouring sweat he saw a diagonal projectile renting the flame wall, thrusting itself where his head waa before he crouched quickly. The monster advanced, its tongue a crimson serpent emerging from the fire. Brock rolled on the free ground and bolted from the inferno, the two women under one arm, all drowned in sweat, wishing bitterly he didn't have this human weight on his claws..  
  
He moved slowly, watching out for three, keeping every strand of hair free from the fire that threatened to close off the only exit in sight. He almost reached it...only a few more feet------Then he felt himself dragged down, ensnared by a tongue that shot piercing burns in his ankle.  
  
So you're hungry already, Hojo.---that's your name, isn't it?..I see the resemblance already. So if I can put his lights out, I can do the same to---what?! A giant set of claws blocked his movement forward, slowly curving inward, a wall that pierced as well as crushed. Some vague hint at the difference, maybe, of the separation between a brute mind in a brute body and a misshapen mind in a brute body. Gio was more direct. If he was going to kill and eat, it was those stupid animal instincts------on the other hand, even in a different form Hojo made his cruelty known.  
  
Brock felt three pointed shadows descend on his body. What a way to be mauled. Any struggle now would impale any of them-too late to act, too late to...  
  
A blurred flash of black darted across the flames, bending its head downwards, a long projectile across it screaming a harsh whir over the flames' growl. It lunged with an infuriated neigh, a snap, a garbled roar of pained agony that silenced with the loss of half a tongue, a thud and the frantic scampering of claws, and the heightened roar of the flame as the lizard dealt out swift retaliation that encircled its attacker., its jaws aflame with the building blaze dripping between its fangs---all that served to block out its mental plea.  
  
Don't!!  
  
That sounded like a child's. A little girl. The Black Rain wouldn't spare the most innocent and untainted of souls, and instead transformed it to a bizarre perversion of a Rapidash, that now galloped full speed as the beast grabbed at its halved tongue in an agonized fury, foam of acid spilling over its gums and burning at the cement with unsatiable appetite. With a silent death cry it lunged, charging in its lumbering trample, smashing through the low doorway, the equine offender gaining distance away from it, and the crawling Gyarados, singed with burns, fled past its massive legs and plunged into the hallway, her friend and her family sounding repeatedly in her brain that wouldn't be calmed.  
  
Meanwhile, the rapid gallop of the other creature carried the scientist's assailant far away from the inferno.  
  
I'm coming! Wait for me!! cried the girl with sad excitement, the beat and scrape of its clawed hooves quiet on the floor from the rumbling inferno charging behind her. She began to pick up speed, the strange mane that crackled and growled on the back of her neck flaring out as if they were flames themselves. The smaller shape screamed across the entranceway, with the lower creature coming up fast behind her in a blind frenzy to escape, the collapsing debris falling about them and narrowing the caviing-in exit. A cascade of flame poured from between the fangs of hell, coursing towards both the monsters, that shot towards the closed door.  
  
The glass liquified in the heat and both tumbled from the entrance, the fluid glass dripping down to the base of the door, searing down the lizard's head as its body broke through the concrete slabs that tumbled down its gigantic forelegs, crushed debris raining off its knees. It lurched foward, the front wall crumbling in a hail of plaster and cement as it forced its body through the building, its tumultous cry rocking the foundations of the building that cracked beneath its titanic girth.  
  
The horse crawled awkwardly on four knees, meeting the demon's gaze, and then the Gyarados, who climbed up on its hind claws, heaving fatigued breaths with its burned arms hanging beside its legs. So...Brock and her sisters got out safely---but whatever relief she felt was preempted with a fear-driven rage, hers of defiance and his of regret at having lost what might've been saved.  
  
You want to wreck Cerulean?  
  
Not while we're here.  
  
The ground trembled beneath leaden claws, scattering the lesser beasts sensing an imminent danger, catching Brock and Misty in a flood of raised fur that swarmed around them in a mad effort to flee, the stamp of their claws raking the quaking pavement that reddened in the blaze beam, flying smoke sweeping a curtain over the panicked wave of erect fur. Brock rolled out of reach, clutching the unconscious women under one arm, sweat beads streaming down the back of his neck onto the base of his shoulders that raised with growling breath.  
  
If she was drained she didn't show it. Her ignited eyes fixated on Daisy and Violet. She wasn't going to lose them in this fight. Brock had them, Brock could get them to safety.  
  
Get them out of here!  
  
He met obstinacy with equal obstinacy. Not without reason. Brock stood a fighting chance against his nemesis...Misty was green. She never fought...anyone, forget Zero-X. And there was no way he was going to lose her.  
  
You can't take him alone.  
  
I can't gamble with my family's life, Brock, the animal answered with weakened growls, its jaw set, adamancy wedged between crouched shoulders, nearer to the ground than to the sky, barring her from the feared and respected species, something it seemed she was growing to accept. Besides...I'm not a person anymore. An asserting roar despite it being racked with tired air rivalled the fire's hiss and its engulfing threat.  
  
You'd better stay alive, was the blunt answer. The yearning in it didn't manifest itself in the feral hiss, cold because of man's nature, venemous because of the creature's intentionally flawed design. It saw it couldn't argue, so it fled, conscious that he could be giving her up.  
  
She wanted her sisters safe. He knew he couldn't live with himself if they died and it made her hate all the more. It would only stain his claws another shade of red.  
  
The condeming burst of flame sounded its fierce roar. He vanished into the night with the humans under his arm, a broken wing, as Misty faced the hellish reptile, resigned to her duty as this was her hometown.  
  
A pulsing jet of water burst from her perpetually open jaws, tearing through the tapestry of hungering flames and hitting the beast in the eyes. One of the claws sunk into the hide around the abused organ, the drops of water dripping in rapid streams.  
  
It removed its claw and glared with one eye that raged a bloody vermillion, the remnant of the other, which consisted of a tangle of retinas, the blast enough to force the mental train of Hojo to resurface.  
  
Strong, heavily concentrated alkaline dihydrogen monoxide...it seems as if Zero-X's defenses are null past the epidermal layer. An untimely coinidence that the precipitation is subsiding...It stared into the sky, thin of moisture.  
  
It lurched directly for Misty, thrusting a nonexistent snarl through rows of tightened fangs. The blast of basic water pulsed in an unswerving line for its other eye, but it collided with the protective lid and drained harmlessly down the side of its head. How naive.....do you believe I would allow my other eye to deteriorate? These impulses of Zero-X...they cannot be resisted...I must feed....perhaps the transformation eliminated the ability to rationalize.....tell me....are you incapapable of comprehending?  
  
YOU'RE the one who doesn't understand---this is my home and I'm going to protect it!! Misty roared with red-hot defiance at the poisonous volcano.  
  
Such unexpected sentiments of one that preys on its unevolved form not quite long after it has evolved...the Gyarados collaborate for two common aims: protection..... ...and aggression. After evolution, all familial ties are broken..a secondary reason they were labelled "atrocious".. This is why I am...intrigued by the grief over your sister's death....grief is chiefly a human emotion...it is the creatures of unnatural nervous complexity...who grieve...certainly not Gyarados....  
  
Stop it..Shut up...SHUT UP!!!  
  
The grey form clawed through the smoke, catching Hojo unprepared, ribbons of the glowing organ falling away as she slashed apart the remaining eye, leaving two hollow gaps that gazed through the smoke, magnifying his hideousness as the eyeless beast roared with--if it hadn't been completely mute, ---enough immensity to collapse the city. It lunged blindly, spouting flame in all directions, foregoing use of logic, of rationality-----it slipped into the limitless confines of unchecked rage, and it lunged for its prey, its meal, the sentries of fire racing wildly on the asphalt, narrowly engulfing Misty's tail. She backed away, fighting against the fear that taking out its eyes made things worse.....  
  
Another blast of water poured from her mouth, drilling through the spout of flame and into the creature's bubbling jaws. With nothing but a silenced hiss to warn what was coming, neutral water came gushing from the lizard's maw, splattering over Misty. A panic came over her...she was..a Gyarados..Gyarados were Water types.. Why then.....did it burn? She glanced down at her scales, the retreating drops leaving trails of burns that bit into her rough hide. But she didn't have time to think about why......the mind was re-emerging, shackling unfettered rage.  
  
It seems as if you are the the one keeping me from feeding..believe me, my dear...I do not enjoy this...it is a simply a....forced necessity...yes.....do you think I derive delight by being compelled to act as an animal....? I assure you, I would much rather be back at my lab.....  
  
Its nostrils dilated, causing its entire head to quiver. It turned its massive body to its left, smelled the air again, and grasped with its foreclaws for an airborne creature tardy in escaping. Misty grabbed her advantage and assaulted with the pulsating energy of the Hyper Beam, that smashed into the hollow eyesockets and battered the muscles behind it. It cringed and shoved its snout between its forelegs, taking the creature and rubbing its claws without much dexterity along its skin for expression of anguish that he no longer could give a semblance of a voice to.  
  
Its rough and brisk cry was enough to tell Misty who exactly that cretaure was. Staryu...!!!!!! she called with a roar that was riddled in joy and came out all wrong, like a challenge or a threat.  
  
This she wasn't aware of. Misty dove for the ground, for Staryu...though without a face to speak of, one she could call friendly...but to a shock overtaken by pain, the Staryu attacked, expelling a Hydro Pump directly at her, assaulting her with a burning bite that left her barely moving on the ground.  
  
I warned you not to prevent me from feeding...it would be detrimental to your health as well as mine...  
  
Staryu.....Misty growled, pressing her tail against the asphalt to lift her up but finding it limp and infirm. It was through a cascade of dripping flame that she saw Staryu swallowed. Give it back!!! she shouted,. in this troubled wave of anger falling to irrationality. An enraged Hyper Beam coursed into the scientist's weak point, smoke from the explosion pouring out of the miserable socket.  
  
Oh? You want it returned? I fail to see your desire to see it partially digested..It creates quite a putrid odor. You are liable to regurgitate.  
  
She had enough. With a roar new with blasting rage, she charged him on all fours, teeth glistening with basic saliva, eyes hellfire of a different hue.....but the water sapped enough energy. It did its damage.  
  
The Pokémon collapsed on her chest as a pulsing sea of fire collected in the death maw.  
  
From a faraway road Brock saw the whole thing. It left him panicked and alarmed, and he bounded towards the building sea of inferno, screaming Misty's name in his monstrous growl, forgetting that he held her sisters' lives under his arms, forgetting that their blood would be on his claws if he didn't get them out alive.  
  
The ocean of flame obscured the other Pokémon from view, last time he saw her she was facing the fire---what if it killed her?! What if---what if---  
  
It stormed for the surface and exited, filling Brock's whole field of view with the blinding light that coursed past his head, nearly alive, living only to consume and devour, and to leave death in its ashes.  
  
When the pulses stopped Brock saw nothing but fire. The scientist built towers from rubble in moments, the height had doubled and fed off wood in houses, sending them smoldering as they magnified and doubled their threat. But the physical danger waned as the fire waxed. The emergence of the broiling flame ate at his memory, not at him. Not at the humans under his arm.  
  
He saw Pewter burn all over again.  
  
Fire.....  
  
Cindy.....  
  
I can't get you out...it's burning..too fast.....  
  
Stop burning...  
  
Give them back...  
  
A few more seconds. That's all I needed. He fixed the cold pits of red fire at the devouring enemy. That's all I need.  
  
No, he couldn't save the town. But he could salvage these two lives. He bounded over the barrier of flame, hurtled the blazing wall, searching desperately for hell's gate.  
  
But he only found he was heading deeper into the core, all while holding humans far more easily burned than he...that were showing their weight on his sagging body...the heat was getting to him...for all his defenses against thrown rocks, the attacks of normal Pokémon---the heat was making him sick with fear...  
  
Maybe I can't find her because there's nothing to find. The devestating thought grabbed at his stomach and twisted it in hideous contortions.  
  
He felt like throwing up...then all the acid would come up and eat at his fangs, make it harder for him to drink..maybe impossible. Maybe then he'd die of thirst, all because that acid threatening to spill up his gullet...  
  
Nice going, Brock. If you die, who's going to protect humans? They may hate you, but they don't deserve to die. You'd better stay alive.  
  
He hurtled another barrier of flame and squatted, the serpentine tongue smelling the air. God, what was that smell? A vague apprehension grasped him as he felt a sting encircle his waist. It grew sharper. A sting to him...to the humans, a burn...  
  
Acid...  
  
The leathery ring pushed into his skin. He felt a sudden jerk and toppled sideways, moving across the ground, with painful stops and starts. He pierced his eyes upward and saw the half of a lizard tongue drawing them slowly into the maw of venom and fire.  
  
So, he was taking the direct approach this time.  
  
That's pretty funny. You're going to eat your own specimen, laughed Brock with a coarse hiss, of rising anxiety entwining with an evident satisfaction. What's going to happen to all your research? Gone just because you're too damn hungry.  
  
He felt the heat make him sicker and the frothing of boiling acid pop louder in his pointed ears. He continued to play, fighting the dread in his thoughts manifesting itself in the sweat that streamed over his entire body. So, go ahead, Eddie. Eat your research. Eat your tribute to science.  
  
A scathing silence loosened the tongue. So Hojo was still there. Perhaps it would have dropped them altogether..but the same dark shape against the black-grey sky, continuously emptying trickles of rain from its clouds, charged towards the entrapping blaze, stopped, leaped across it like a thing of another world, and blew through the remainder of the tongue, snapping it in fourths and completing the delayed motor response.  
  
The cry would have toppled the foundations of Cerulean had it not been entirely muted.  
  
Brock lay on the chopped piece of tongue, its remains a squat jagged stub that writhed violently, the beast itself rearing on its hind legs, retreating into the flame barrier, the scientist returning to the hell it created, all the while noiseless save for its rumbling tread.  
  
He freed himself and Misty's sisters from the tangle of tongue, clumsily ripping through the limp piece. The fire bit at his hand, making him aware...any movement would burn them...roast them...he could smell burning hair already. Flesh was next. He had to Teleport... Get the humans out...then worry about Misty and him. Damn it---Maybe if he hadn't lost focus, if he'd just gotten the hell out of there when he had the chance------ DAMN_IT_ALL...he growled with the weight of despair hanging on his heart. The fire spurted converging on that one spot barely 7 inches wide..He could feel the psychic energy engulf them, but not fast enough..  
  
He felt the heat remain but the inferno wane, not distant enough to ease restless nerves, but not eating at his back. He felt the ground move slightly beside him in a quiet tremor, more of dirt piles and asphalt chunks more than entire streets and the buildings that boredered them.  
  
I missed you.  
  
The---strangely gentle snort served a wrenching jolt to his memory. He thought he heard it somewhere before. A claw came up to his head, bathed in sweat and grime, as if searching for a memory.  
  
Was it..?!  
  
Suzy...Suzy?! He whirled his head around, expecting to see the familiar squinting eyes and brown-purple hair, the rather stubborn face and her little hands and her dress that got torn again...  
  
But there was no such image. There was only a dark horse, a horn in perpetual Horn Drill, lurching backward and catching Brock unawares on its back, leaping upward over the tower of flame, and landing on the free ground. The relentless flames roared nearby, but they were out of its stomach and in front of its starving jaws.  
  
Brock stared, open-mouthed, brushing the back of his hand on his forehead, wiping off the sweat that he thought maybe blinded him, maybe was lying to him. That wasn't Suzy.... It couldn't be....Last time he saw her, she was a girl---a human....  
  
I'll help, her thoughts flooded his mind, and she bounded over the flame pillar, tears of a mixed joy and sorrow of lonely, empty days spent roaming dripping from the eyes as red as his framed in reptillian scales. Bye-bye, Brock---tell daddy and Cindy and Tommy and Timmy and everyone I'm okay---I'm going to make the mean Pokémon go away..!  
  
Brock's mouth opened to yell as his heart seemed to sprout joyous wings but the emotion deadened in him knowing that she too couldn't go back.  
  
And then he realized what she meant to do.  
  
Don't do it!!!! The desperate roar fell on faraway ears that quickly receded, going, leaving him again---the only member of his family he had left---don't leave----come back-----Suzy...SUZY!!!!!  
  
Teleport responded to mental signals in the brain in a Psychic Pokémon. This intense concentration was said to forbid emotion, enabling Psychics to be ruthless in their combat. But, if it couldn't be controlled, then an onslaught of stress, of conflicting thoughts and sensations, could trigger the same reaction, and the process would begin on its own.  
  
Brock reached for his sister that galloped farther and farther away with a hand that was red, immersed in eerie light, the aura that engulfed the teleported object. The more he wanted to stay, the quicker his brain channeled the energy in the process.  
  
Both of them vanished, he into the sky, and she into the fire.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The polished surface of the recently used conference table served as a reminder that penetrated even he whose surety in his position and his identity was absolute.  
  
He had passed his bathroom mirror hurriedly while pulling on an extra coat that differered from the first by lost buttons--a flaw disgruntling to him who liked to think of himself as impeccably dressed, and at the same time, he dared not skulk in public without a coat---skulk? WALK. Yes...walk with aplomb and sangfroid---with unflappable confidence in the surety of self.  
  
Now he gazed upon the table, its surface plainly forcing him to grasp the enormity of his bestial shadow.  
  
He briskly passed out of the conference room for that reason, exiting a different "man" than when he had entered. The certainty had waned... The slit pupils set in hideous narrows that flared a fire's orange dashed quickly, furtively, setting on one object before resting on another, a lion that has been hunted and fears the return of the long shape looming over the thicket which brings death.  
  
But there was no hunter, no shotgun, no-one on this floor. Up here he could expect security---only the executives and those directly responsible to them prowled these halls-which, could be added, a single one of them he could not trust. But a familiar threat was easier to anticipate and avoid than an unknown menace.  
  
If it comes to that...no qualms, Rufus forged a pact with himself, allowing a smile to twist the stern snarl. He regarded his built-in weapon. Convenient. His stigma was also his lifeline.  
  
The claws retracted, concealing these knives inside relatively harmless paws. What power he now posessed--not the quite he thirsted for, but power that could be easily used to his advantage.  
  
The price for this power? He did not expect one of Heidegger's secretaries to shriek on passing him---time away from his mirror bated the hideousness in which he viewed himself. A solid blow to his ego, and for one so vain, that only sharpened the instrument. However vain, though, he had an immense pride that made him almost unconquerable. He answered the secretary with his glare of ice, angry to be feared as an object as low as a beast, but content---for this device on his head made his thoughts known, and he left the secretary in pale bewilderment.  
  
He soon reached the office door and let himself in, very much assured. He paced to the window that offered a nearly panoramic view of the city. The window that overlooked Vermillion was his eye to another world...and an eye to himself.  
  
The compelling thirst to shatter the window reigned high in him, to destroy the bestial image, showing him the teeth-filled scowl at this mold of inhuman imperfection. But he restrained himself. The window wasn't entirely a mirror. It served a double function. The other purpose overshadowed the first, calmed him, almost to the point of forgetfulness.  
  
The window showed the city overrun with beasts, the race of which he denied. He fixed a condescending eye on the inhuman pestilence. He was just as eager as his lesser executives to begin exterminating.  
  
Heidegger should have been ready by now, the .feline stroked his furred chin with a shining black claw.  
  
One ear snapped at the thundering voice on the intercom, the sobriety of which was a surprise to him.  
  
"Ready for orders." The whiskers twitched slightly. He thought he detected some unsurety, maybe hesistancy in the voice. His teeth clamped in a ferocious growl, he commanded,  
  
Deploy the troops.  
  
*~*~*  
  
A second Midgar struggled deformed out of a diseased womb. This could not compare in size, nor amount of pollution, nor did it boast the Plate, but none could tell if it was day or night, the air thick and heavy with the enduring precipitation, marooning its people in total despair. These people weren't the hard-faced, rough-talking people of Midgar's sublevel. No. You couldn't tell who these people were. No one could recognize them. No one wanted to. Getting caught by the rain shut the doors in their kin's faces, never knowing who they were locking out, leaving them for the police to catch and hold at the Pokémon Center until they were claimed. The dragon's brief tornado didn't prevent them from their original strategy nor did it bar the Fuschians and Celadonites to swamp Vermillion, tearing through the police lines hastily erected to keep people out of the fissure, teeming with freak Pokémon. Great idea. Who'd claim them? Who wants a Squirtle draped in Grimer poison with an equally altered Charmander sprouting out of its shell?  
  
Another batch of Growlithe rampaged the soaking street, howling and baying at climbing shadows. They flew an ignited wind that blew by the glass door, unclear from the tone whether they chased or were being hunted. They nearly ran down the lean lump that glided across the sidewalk, their discordant song an ache in his sharpened ears. He melted into an alleyway, running through the monster-ridden path.  
  
"Joker," said the feline shape, tracking cautiously through the puddles that embraced the upper part of his forelegs, out of the alley and ending on another street, blocked off to humans by the laughably ineffectual yellow tape, torn in the middle and pocketing the rain. Freaks of every variety crawled out of the fissure like it was spawning a new race.  
  
The cat paused, gave the humans in their rumpled, stained uniforms a curious glance, muttered to Jenny's back, "Every card's a Joker."  
  
The hunger cries of the emerging mutants was the last thing he heard out of the main road, but by then he'd passed into a side street and away from the bullhorn, the humans, and the beasts. He found the indistinct sidewalk, the awnings growning heavy above his head and water-bound freaks wallowing in the black lakes. "You're a really sick man, Hojo, dragging people in a game and they don't want to play."  
  
Reeve's paws printed disappearing marks in the drowned sidewalk, impressions that seemed as transient as this world's humanity.  
  
He found some space to breathe and grabbed at it zealously, pouncing one of the free awnings and scaling the building, latching and climbing, hoping to escape the hostile creatures that yelled at him in grating tongues.  
  
With distress he meowed, reaching for the sill and squeezing himself against the wet wood, his chest rolling with uneven breaths. The darkness flashed against the back of his eyes that glowed in the manner of cats. From the window he could see the Shin-Ra tower, cold and apathetic. "Looks like the President before he changed," Reeve mused, bringing a paw up to tongue and pressing the fur down. The distance between him and the freaks calmed him, and he almost appeared serene, tail hanging off the window sill, relaxed posture, staring off into the distance. towards the distant monster of steel. It once was a haven, but Hojo's game made it a pillar of volatile chaos. "Jump ship before it sinks," he advised, with vague attention noticing isolated clumps of twisting shapes scaling the supports. "Maybe it's started to already. Even if it isn't, no one will stand for a---" At recalling Rufus as he last saw him Reeve shuddered, almost balled himself up. Maybe Rufus wasn't nearly as hideous as the throng of genetic blasphemies he encountered, but he didn't know them, who they were before. They were nameless victims. But he knew Rufus. And knowing the man before he became a monster scared him more than the glimpse of limbs growing out of mouths filled with thorns for teeth protecting a sanguine eye that bled venom from its vulpine ears.  
  
More of those passed by below, in a stampede, drilling their claws and hooves and feet across the treacherous pavement. "Damnit..he really knows how to screw up a working system," He shook his head, oblivious to his own cat-in-the rain malodor pervading the small space and the distant whir of choppers that circled the tower's perimeter.  
  
He did hear, however, the squealing of a giant horned rat in army fatigue and a bandanna that scurried into his space, slamming the cat from the sill and onto the no-longer empty awning. He yelped and scrambled from the cascading pool and plunged into the street, catching the tumult of raised water, cries of confusion that waxed as he raced down the monstrous river. It rendered unfamiliar the familiar road with the howling and groaning of these four-legged tourists, trampling through the sidewalk and stampeding across the curb, rattling the sewer gratings and bashing against windows, and it was only by feel rather than sight that he knew he was approaching Vermillion's east gate.  
  
All through the chaos he ran hastily through the black water, an unbroken trail of ripples visible behind him in the exploding store lights and crashing glass that reached into the darkness.  
  
A shriek rent through the turmoil. The feline ears twitched, two open triangles with that noise--of agony, he thought it sounded like---bouncing across its corners. The shriek came through despite the animal clamor and the rain's thunder, its pleading tenor forcing Reeve to weave through the river of bodies and break from its grasp. He climbed up to another awning, narrowly avoiding a tumbling bird-bug that ripped a hole clean through it, summoning the black water to leap off the surface only to rain on the sidewalk through the gaping hole. In that time, he heard the shriek again, no plainer than it was before.A dull explosion in the sky fed his curiosity and the cat scurried to the sill, latching onto the protrustions, once more carrying himself away from the clamor of below.  
  
There it was again. The shriek. Once on the roof it became clear. He stood with his claws hugging the concrete tightly--his fur raised in fear.  
  
Fog? Hotter. Mist? Thicker. Smoke? Ebony. Fire.  
  
"Demolition's started..." Reeve observed with a grimace one of the climbers go down in flame and blood. .The choppers wove a helix around the misshapen clumps, lurching as nameless men lobbed encased death at nameless beasts.  
  
A cold sickness in his gut siezed him, disgust breeding in his expression. Reeve was close in his heart to the living things that didn't spit in your face or laugh at failures. He was expecting a bloodbath, but horrors in your mind's eye aren't as terrifying than when you actually see it.  
  
"No Proud Clods, but the result's the same", Reeve decided morosely, feeling hs blood chill as flying creatures burst into flame, folded their wings in unwilling submission to death, and plummeted.  
  
. "Sure that Heidegger and Scarlet would vote in favor for mass carnage," he murmured at the inflamed object. "Then they'll give the Silph workers mops and double their wages for as long as it takes them to clean up," Reeve muttered somewhat bitterly. "And no one'll know they're made out of Rufus' fur." He turned his snub muzzle towards the building. The smoke erupting from the sides of the building in his mind's eye became the smoke from a rushed and covert cremation.  
  
A slight shudder racked his spine at the all-too-vivid speculation. It's not that he admired the man, was faithful to his employer, or anything of the sort. Their connection was one of semi-respectful formality, though he remembered, he had made plans to attend the funeral scheduled for the next year, only there wasn't one because some body-snatcher stole the corpse from the morgue. No one really asked why no more than months later Heidegger, Scarlet, and Rufus were reported to be recovering in the Mideel hospital. That was a surprise. AVALANCHE had killed Scarlet and Heidegger, but it took a few days to assert that Diamond Weapon's assault on Midgar did indeed kill Rufus.  
  
For a time, anyway. But Reeve was sure that nothing would be spared. Any hint of abnormality...the president didn't have long to live.  
  
"...If they didn't have him killed already," the cat meowed, turning away from the gory bath and dashing off the roof, a hideous cawing triggering wings of fear.  
  
In this brief hurricane's eye, he'd forgotten that the freaks were EVERY--where. The very shadows lived. Driven by refreshed terror, the cat ran to the roof's edge, the wriggling shapes tracing a disjointed ring around the terrified feline. He leaped off the building, missing the awning and landing side-first on the crowd's back. "So much for 'cats always land on their feet'," he groaned, feeling his body shift backwards. It didn't take him long to realize that the surface he was clinging to by the ends of his claws was mobile.With a distressed yowl he raced up the jagged mountain and sprang off the wildly twisting spine only to find another back that quaked under him in fury. Behind him were eyes, hollow and hell-filled, and the entire river quickened, forcing Reeve to jump from that beast to another..  
  
Like those treadmills they got the sense to eliminate in the current HQ. With the near-absence of cars, Shin-Ra employees could get more than enough exercise. But those treadmills had off buttons. This treadmill, alive, vibrant, savage, snaked in all directions and boiled at the creature that dared to ride the river instead of melding with it---one of them stopped out of sheer rage, halted altogether to throw the cat from its back. This random flight path smacked him on someone's head at the rear.  
  
That someone gave a piercing howl and shook its fur wildly, sending the screeching cat headlong into the pavement. A longish snout pinned him, the nose running with Black Rain dripping on his fur, sniffing the fur of this natural enemy---that was an enemy in the other sense, too---or used to be, before he defected entirely to their side.  
  
"It's Cait Sith," the creature announced in a clear voice, backing away from the feline, the marked hostility in his coiled stance waning to respectful detatchment. The cat blinked and crawled out of the puddle, his sopping whiskers plasterd against his muzzle, his eyes dazed, reeling from dizziness. It took him a while to focus, to discern the lean dog, and to rocognize him as one of the AVALANCHE members. At that he smiled slightly, warring against nausea, and answered as steadily as the dizziness enabled him to,  
  
"No, just Reeve. Cait Sith joined up with you a long time ago. His alter-ego wised up and decided to do the same," the cat responded in tones as clear and uninhibited as the dog's. The latter upturned his head towards the human-shaped shadow rigid in the darkness in the form of a silent question, pointedly obvious by drawn uncertainty.  
  
If Vincent was inclined to give an answer, the words never formed. His strengthened senses detected a loud stamp behind them: he glided a circle and fixated a stare on the advancing uniforms.  
  
"Your word is already tarnished. We have been ambushed."  
  
The SOLDIERs advanced in one conforming wave, each component as deadly as the entirety. Their peril took slow hold of Nanaki, his teeth locked in anger, once again coiled.It was only with a narrow roll that Reeve saved his cat hide from a vicious mauling.  
  
"Can't you trust me? I'm on your side, you know," Reeve stated evenly, aware that his word alone wasn't good enough to prove anything. A growled "no" was enough to settle that. The last bout of dizziness left him and he gripped his senses fully, wary that another attack would come swift and fierce. He licked his lower jaw in visible nervousness. Left Shin-Ra only to be labelled as a Shin-Ra. It started to dawn on him how stupid a move that was, and like an ill-planned building, it'd crumble on itself. But he'd lament later. It wasn't just his hide, but theirs, too. Setting his jaw in a feline hiss, he reminded the dog, "In case you haven't noticed, Red XIII, we have bigger problems to worry about."  
  
With a grudging shake of the head Nanaki acknowledged that on that point, Reeve was right. Capacity for logic had been his savior more than once. It was his rationality was what won the rest of AVALANCHE's trust, all humans, that weren't animal lovers anyway. He bent his frame away from the believed enemy and toward the true opposition, readying for their fire. His single eyeball moved among the ranks. A deliberate scan of the enemy and their arsenal and he knew they were up against.  
  
"They're armed to the teeth this time. Be careful," he warned the vampire-like man, who withdrew himself to a limp position, knowing once enough hate bubbled in his demonic veins that he would be fit for a position to fight.  
  
"They do not know what their opposition is," Vincent answered with a crack of a smile barely lifting the corners of his mouth as if certain of the outcome. Perhaps too certain.  
  
"Lets make this quick," growled the commander decked in a red uniform that clashed awkwardly against the cerulean pack. "Take 'em out!"  
  
From the ordered chaos of SOLDIERs a row of blinding machines belched a flash of razing energy. It hit Vincent head-on, crumpling his seemingly frail body inward, leaving him slightly bent in an unvoiced pain. The mass of red fur charged, weaving through the deadly wood of energy beams that hacked open the asphalt cloaked in dust and fire, the stomp of the SOLDIERs waxing more threatening in their ears.  
  
It didn't shock Nanaki that the black cat vanished.as the fire thickened.  
  
"Coward," barked the dog with acrid resentment. He bounded into the dense mass of SOLDIERs, dodging the flashes of heat and light that sizzled the air and obscured all directions. Boiling with ire, Nanaki blindly leaped, catching a SOLDIER by his firing arm and clamping his teeth in the elbow. A shout from the bitten SOLDIER turned their aim, searching in vain for the attacking beast. There was a spray of bullets and one of them went down in the blackness.  
  
Vincent lingered solid in the rear, stooping a little, the scarlet cape hurled this way and that with the tumult, waiting for his demon. He watched the fray with his deadened eyes, distant and removed, watching the dog, biting and raking without aim, and the cat, looping around the hydrant and back into the fray. There was a sudden yowl, a clang as if from a garbage can lid, a startled cry, and another one went down.  
  
A shot seared through his organic arm, and Vincent stood on one narrow knee, his hair in the gulf. He could feel his demon emerging from his soul, clutching at his heart.  
  
"It will not be long....." the granitic man assured himself without tone. He stood, feeling his arteries swell, close to bursting from the diabolical blood that coursed within it. But he had yet to feel the transformation, to hear his monotonous voice burst into a bestial roar that tore at his vocal chords. He felt nothing, and it fed a barely noticeable irritation. "Do not bait me, Chaos. I have but a single weapon."  
  
"There's only two!" Vincent started at the human voice. "Are you blind?! Watch what you're shooting!"  
  
The wave of fire burst upon Nanaki, panting and crouching to avoid the shots, returning their misses with hits growing sparser and weaker. Vincent stayed stonelike as ever, and Chaos froze dormant. As the pavement blew up around him, he receded, moving farther away from the tumult as he absorbed himself in pondering.  
  
"The Shin-Ra's targets are not human. Then they must have.." His chest racked with hollow, empty laughter at the absurdity of their mistake. "...mistaken me for a man. How wrong they are. Their folly will be their grave." Close to him he sensed blood spilling. Nanaki was hit in one or more places, and it was only one foreleg that was clawing at the SOLDIERs, the other limp and desperately gripping a hold on the smoking asphalt. A bullet spray tore up the pavement, lodging a chunk into his hind leg. An angry howl leaped through the night, and the dog threw himself at a throat for the energy that was so rapidly draining. One of the rear SOLDIERs rushed on Nanaki, drawing back his sword for a lethal strike. The cat struck first, rolling a garbage can into the SOLDIER's path. To Reeve's horror the machine was swifter. It leaped the obstacle and drove in for Nanaki's neck, raising the sword above his armored shoulder.  
  
The wolf bit on his teeth. Just like the fight with the Turks that day except...we don't have Materia. Nanaki felt his hind paws shuffling back, his rational mind contesting with his spirit of the warrior that fights even as the blood pulses for the last time.  
  
The blade hacked into a wing that appeared from nowhere that hooked under the swinging arm and hurled the attacker on the pavement with a resounding crack. The SOLDIERs' fire instantaneously shifted away from Nanaki, who let out a bark of astonishment.  
  
"It's him," he panted, hurling his lean body on the winged back that toseed violently, bringing the face, twisted with resentment and the hideousness of a dragon melded with a human being covered in days worth of Black Rain and accumulated dirt that painted the squarish head in feral stripes, level with Nanaki's.  
  
"So that's how it is..:" snarled the dragon-man, dodging the sizzling beams of glowing heat. He bounded straight up, barely avoiding the thirsty blade's edge while Nanaki struggled furiously to bite the scale-covered skin. Cid threw him off with the wings from five feet high, the dog jumping as he fell hard on the pavement, his teeth grit in supressed pain. A malicious gust blew his short fur in the windward direction as a shadow streaked his vision and a voice yelled in his ear, "I save your canine ass---" He painfully rolled on his side and sprang to his paws, panting from exhaustion. Cid shot a wounded glare at the dog, who growled in return. "---And ya go all mental on me!!!"  
  
"You're a serious threat," Nanaki answered in an attempt to be apathetic but betraying his reluctance at attacking what he wanted to believe was a fellow AVALANCHE member. But his current duty triumphed and he clawed the rough ground, regaining his attack stance and pouncing for the target once more.  
  
"Me? ME? I'm not the one that's a biter!!" he yelled back, grabbing one of the SOLDIERs by the arm and sinking the half-flat, half-sharp ends into the skin, drawing drops of blood that dripped from the vessels. The SOLDIERs returned with focused fire at the dragon that barrel-rolled past the dog unnerved with the total hypocrisy of his words.  
  
At that he tightened his guard, twisted on his hind paws, and caught a glimpse of Cid's vicious eyes, washed with wild, fervent glaze. He rubbed the back of his neck with the back of his hand and shoved it in Nanaki's face, drops of gold blood shining in his eye. The dog looked up in time to see Cid's teeth divide, one half a grimace and the other a wide-open mouth as if two people in his brain were warring. But there was no way to know..."Bad dog...better get out the newspaper.." With a sudden whirl Cid lashed out with his tail and smacked the yelping dog. He flew into the concrete wall and connected with his side, crumpled and beaten. "Assfuck...you killed the mutt---hey- Red XIII!" he called, the asphalt chunks and the limp bodies dancing grimly in the gust. He landed and grabbed the red dog and shook him roughly. Never liked him and his tree-hugging, but all the same, he wasn't an animal. Goddamnit...no sign of movement, just that one eye closed and glaring behind the eyelid...which snapped open violently. The battered dog scraped himself off the wall, limping on three legs, drained, weakened, but alive and livid. "Don't know when he's beat, eh? Got me worried there a sec---"  
  
The answer was expected. Giving a cracked howl, the limping beast rushed the enemy again. Draconis Rex struck with its claws, Cid fought, straining, sweating, fighting the dragon's unshakable will. "GOD--damnit-- I got NOTHIN' against the mutt, freak!! He's a bloodthirsty kitten. He'll bite us. I'll bite YOU, motherfucking---" Like one posessed, Cid lunged for his arm and rammed human and draconic teeth into the underside, hurling himself on the pavement, writhing with madness in his face. He foamed, blood and saliva shooting down his elbow in glistening rivulets. "Th--that'll teach ya..." He lay flat on the pavement next to the SOLDIER's bodies, some twitching, others goraning, most motionless, streaks of rain masking his body under the liquid film. He was wiped-out, his naked chest expanded with jagged lungfuls of air made unbreathable with the blood hanging in it.  
  
An empty clank denoted the presence of the only being there that could hide his bestiality under a mask of humanity, and even then, it was pushing it. The mask was frail. You could sense the demon fangs through the holes.  
  
The human demon hovered over the pathetic dragon-man. The falling rain obscured his sight and Cid started, fear of retribution in the form of the billowing cape that was starting to look like Chaos' black-red wings. "See, he's gonna shred both our sorry asses," the man managed a growl, his lips barely moving, eyes wild with paranoia, gazing far off into his head at the beast. Bet you're REAL proud, huh?"  
  
Draconic Rex held his tongue and pursed Cid's lips. Close call that time. Youth was reckless. His 200 years was Highwind's 34. He knew he was intractable. He molded himself that way. His clan expected it of him. Now, looking through terrified eyes at the grim, frozen being who Highwind said was Chaos, who posessed power that could maybe crush him--he would've never believed that Valentine would be capable of destruction until he saw him on the brink of transformation, in transition between man and monster---close enough to becoming Chaos that the eyes were no longer eyes but hell pits and his skin flushed red with rage, he wrestled against that rebelliousness, that defiance towards man.  
  
His life consisted of no compromise, never giving in to the human hand. Never admit their superority. And most of all, never admit dependency. He knew he'd failed when they locked him away, and when he found his freedom he swore to never give an inch again, but..it all seemed pointless if he wanted to see his 201st year.....  
  
He picked Cid's body up and stared the statue-like man squarely, his teeth flashing with controlled malignance. "It's a dragon's pride. But it looks like you're correct. What happens to him happens to me. I loathe saying it," A feral growl forced out of his throat between the wedged teeth. "We share this---" He passed a disgusted glare at the human shape. "--body, but our minds are our own."  
  
"That proves nothing," Vincent answered simply, indicating with a slight hand motion the wheezing animal. "Your demon still claims mastery over you. How will anyone know that the man is in control, that the demon uses one voice to goad his enemies into believing his lies?"  
  
It was unsure whether the dragon or Cid crossed his arms over his chest in cold indignance.  
  
"You don't believe us," Cid's gruff, tobacco-warped voice stated. "Then I'd wonder if your pet can be so sure that you have YOUR demon under control. From what Highwind tells me, Chaos is just as lethal...maybe more so." He grinned at tentative Chaos in expected victory. There was no need for a change in expression. It was enough for him to sense the faint tremor in the deadened eyes..  
  
"It is a chance that must be taken. To exist among men once more without fear of waking next to their corpses. It is a difficult task, is it not?" he asked all and none, lifting his covered chin towards the horizon."..one which now I am not sure I have accomplished." He lifted his human hand sleeved in the black glove and held it stiff in front of his face. A traitor biding his time in his own body. He held the chain with a watchful hand but if it ever broke..  
  
In a tone of indifferent surrender he murmured, "It seems, Red XIII, that we have found half our lost companion."  
  
Nanaki nodded, fixing his untrusting eye on the dragon and Cid. So, Vincent said we can trust half of him? How much of Vincent can I trust? the dog asked warily. He held back against the enemy. Did he fear himself? That other time while fighting Hojo, he CHOSE to transform. What difference does it make if our enemy is the Shin-Ra or Cid? The crimson wolf/lion leaned with grit teeth on his haunches, wincing as he licked his swollen wounds with an equally swollen tongue. The threat of the pilot elevated his guard, and he raised his muzzle and pointed a slightly accusatory look at Cid that showed only a feeble spark of trust.  
  
"We found what we're looking for," he stated with evident tension rendering his tone hostile, dragging his bruised tail through the deepened puddles, the fire at the end of it a waning candle. "We'd better find Barret and Tifa and a way home."  
  
"Back to the Planet?" the shadow of the vanishing cat fell across the pavement, and the feline crawled out from under a SOLDIER's leg, the white fur on his stomach tangled and colored in someone else's blood. "It's more complicated than you'd think."  
  
Nanaki was ready to snap with what little energy he had left to spend but remembered that the Shin-Ra employee fought the enemy, however ineffectual it was. Then it wasn't him that called the SOLDIERs. Maybe it was just an act. He couldn't be sure. His true loyalties were questionable, but so was Yuffie's. And besides...  
  
He's not duplicitous...like Cid and Vincent. Cid that's practically two people and Chaos a perpetual threat, whether under Vincent's control or not. You could be sure that you were talking to one person and not two. Though the term "person" stretches it out of proportion.  
  
The wolf/lion licked at his wounds again, the tongue collecting globes of blood as it flicked back into his jaws.  
  
"Tell us what you know."  
  
"It's not much," Reeve answered the direct, foward question matter-of-factually. Something compelling him to keep their presence covert, he suddenly lowered his voice.a few decibels, glancing at the fallen SOLDIERs. That was a mere handful of their troops. Rufus didn't exactly spend lightly on the military. It was massive, dwarfing the forces of Kanto, Jouto, and Houen combined. This unit might have been wiped out, but they could be sure another fresh one would replace them. SOLDIERs were easily cycled. "We'd better get out of the city, first," he advised, looking furtively over his shoulder down the emptied street that could fill with Shin-Ra artillery at any given moment. He felt agitation climbing up his nerves as he saw their set reluctance. He probably knew what they were thinking. An ex-Shin-Ra, liable to betray them. Weren't ready to trust him yet.  
  
Then again, none of them trusted each other. AVALANCHE wasn't tightly-knit to begin with, more of a loose organization with different causes--and it was made looser still in that two of them were double-headed, the other never a man.  
  
Though now it seemed rather tantalizing to be in the second state. Animals were whole while men were in pieces. How muhc more the broken pieces of a man contesting the will of a whole being?  
  
TO BE CONTINUED..... *~*~*  
  
A/N: ^^ Stay tuned for chapter 26! 


	26. You Aren't What You Eat

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Okay, so Erin isn't physically writing the fic, but she did set the basis for the entire thing---some things I really can't change, such as Brock's humanoid shape, fact he's a blood-drinker---(I won't say vampire in the traditional sense because he's not undead, and on that note, no one in this story is undead, not even Vincent, folks. x_X Or else this wouldn't be some second-rate attempt at SCIENCE-fiction--but I'm referring to my attempts, not hers, because they're ALWAYS above first rate. ^_^ GO READ  
  
HER FICS. NOW.)--the past (thanks to her wonderful explanations on how Brock, Giovanni, Cid, and Hojo are in the very happy comfortable situation they're in -_^), and Lucrecia/Vincent. Hahaaaaa...no comment there. ^^; So, taking her name out of the author slot would be rude and plain pigheaded. Phew! That was a lot of air. Here's chapter 26. ^^  
  
*~*~*  
  
Don't usually write this long. Hell, I don't write at all. But seein' that orange stray yesterday got me worryin'---so here I am, writing out the whole thing 'cause that fucker won't get off my window---and 'cause I gotta piece it together to know it's all true. 'Cause it's too damn warped to be real----maybe I'm just goin' psycho and it was just a real tangible bad dream.  
  
Never liked the freakhouse up in Reactor Town. Yeah, I know that ain't the real name. Only been up there once so how's that long-ass name gonna stick? They shoulda saved up them brain cells and called it hell-----and make damn sure they nail a road sign warnin' stupid dumbasses to not go wanderin' in there askin' for a wrench. Only thing that's keepin' me from smokin' the whole damn pack is it's 026's 8th anniversary. Gives me another reason to chew the bitch out.....draggin' her ass around---ain't gonna get any faster----a slug in a wheelchair'd beat her 'fore she got past the startin' point. That's why I started smokin', you know. And the first few hook you on it. Can't stop. Don't want to stop. Calms me down, gets my mind off 026 and the damn Shin-Ra. Keeps Shera's pride black-and- blue and Shera safe. Not that I care about her. Hell no way. She shot me out of the sky and broke my wing. I'll never let her forget it.  
  
Shin-Ra sure didn't. They nuked the Space Program---on top of that, had the balls to gave me an old junky protoype to test-fly, sayin' it was a "consolation"-----consolation my ass. Like that's gonna get Shin-Ra 026 off the launchpad. I ain't done countin' the cobwebs and the rusted spots. They didn't give a shit. It didn't = gil for 'em. Threw space in the trash.  
  
Sure, I flew their gramps. Didn't refuel at Junon, just kept flyin', knowing there's a big guard called the atmosphere and a junky plane wasn't gonna get past it. Felt cheated outta the stars. Right above me, too. They were calling and I coldn't fucking come 'cause of Shera's slow ass. Somewheres over the mountains they stopped calling. Didn't see any of 'em anymore-----this green haze ate 'em up from sight. Same kinda haze there was in Midgar, but this was more, like it was here longer to pump out more more crap. If you ever fly over a Reactor you know it: it's like flying in green fog. Pretty damn scary at first. Flying over a reactor's entering new territory. No one wants to live near one, so it's just the people that can't go or they've got the balls to stay. Just another Reactor Town. But it's different from Midgar and Corel. Midgar ya feel at home and Corel a guest, but Reactor Town's a freakout. The people there'll ya where the inn is and where to get a wrench---yeah, they're some help, but the house up north-----I'll never forget that damn house.  
  
Tank went empty and the assembly line reject started fallin' apart 2 miles from Reactor town. So I went to Reactor Town to grab a wrench while God was pissin' on my head. Back then the fatasses in Shin-Ra were movin' from Reactor Town to Midgar, so the place was empty and labeled the inn's long as the high-hats were gone. Wanted to fix the P.O.S. ASAP---didn't know why I wanted to bail outta there so fast---sometimes I think 'cause the Reactor looked 24/7 like it was gonna have a meltdown --maybe it's instinct that somethin' completely fucked up was gonna happen. Hell, whatever. Pourin' crap by the time I got there. Back then it was a new house. Had a doorknocker that's missin' now. They let me in to crash for the night for 12-----20 gil? Don't remember now.  
  
Dreamed about the damn wrench. Was 'gonna look for one first thing in the morning, but some things can all your plans and make you forget what you came here for in the first place. Every once in a while you heard noises--not like leaky faucets, creaky stairs---nothin like that---that didn't happen 'till the higher-ups bailed for good and the town inn got fixed up, and the big house got real old real fast, paint peeling, dust bombs, you know the drill. Then everythin' started falling apart. These noises were like someone getting Mako-pumped for the first time. Some of the guys in SOLDIER---regular badasses that pissed their drawers when they saw that needle comin. Some of 'em bawled like babies. A real sight. I figured that poor fuck was gettin' an armful. I wasn't gonna stay to see if he came out de-aged 10 years. Got a wrench from a sideways toolbox---only thing in the room that looked used---and walked out in knee-high mud to fix it and whaddya know? Some punk stripped it good. Nose, tail, everything jacked.  
  
I was too tired to look for the assfuck and crashed at the house. Slept through the moaning. Next day I ripped the town apart and didn't find a fucking tire. So I was stranded at Reactor Town at the freakhouse 'till the Shin-Ra got back. Wasn't my idea of the 1-week vacation they were promisin' me. Didn't get any better with that SOLDIER moaning every 10 minutes. Middle of the night---if I didn't feel sorry for the fucker I'd go down there and beat his lights out--- Until it stopped. Slept like a baby the first time in weeks. Made up for not bein' able to fly, those 2 days havin' your alarm clock off. It didn't start again anymore. The croaker must've let 'im out. Out where? I parked my ass in the room closest to the door. I'd see if a soldier stumbled out the door groaning like he was pregnant. Then I remembered, the guys got their shots, got out. Mako infusion even in those days didn't last long. No way was it weeks. Then I got to thinking maybe it wasn't a SOLDIER. I was young and a smart-ass and wanted to find out what was keepin' me up all that time, so I went downstairs.  
  
Now I wish I let it alone.  
  
Passed by a locked door that gave me a bad feeling. You ever let fears you had when you're a kid get the better of you? Sounds crazy, don't it? I swear I heard the door scream...or somethin' behind it. Was gonna fool with the lock and go through the door, but then there was another noise. First I thought it was the damn "door" again. It was comin' from up ahead. But it was someone talking. A kid. "Help" he said to me. Pretty strange, a kid with two big cowlicks crawlin' on the floor as if he couldn't walk yet. Something flew by my head. The kid sat up and looked at me funny. Still couldn't see any of 'em 'cept his shadow that looked like he was walking on his knees. He didn't move, just scratched his head with his balled-up hand and asked me, "Can you help me walk like them, mister?" "Kid, what the fucking hell are you talking about?" I asked right back at him. Wasn't ever fond of kids. Especially the ones that asked me somethin' that didn't make any sense.  
  
The kid just kept on walking and said, "He says I'm more like them than momma and dad-----he says I've got to walk like them or else he'll-----" I rolled my eyes and let him get done with the drama. "- -take ny voice away," he said. "Don't be stupid, kid. No one goes around takin' voices." Then he said somethin' to me I'm still tryin' to forget. It made what we did on Sr. Ray justified. "You've got to believe me, mister. He takes voices---do you know what happens when he takes them, mister? Real bad things. He says if he takes voices away he takes people away." By then I thought he was full of it. "Okay, get lost kid-----.  
  
He gave me this real sad look. "Mister, I'm trying real hard--see? I can stand like them! See? I can keep my voice and go upstairs and see momma and dad again! He says I can go up when I look like momma and dad!!" The kid was so fucking annoying. Was so happy 'cause he could walk around like a mountain lion-----he did it good, I had to admit. Real good. TOO good. It wasn't 'till he settled down a bit that I saw the cowlicks move... It was real dark but I saw him lick his hand for some reason. Figured he was demented. Everything got real bright all of a sudden like getting speared in the eyes with light. I coudln't see anything, and I ran like hell. The kid started crying. I saw his arm grab for me, but it wasn't a kid's arm, but a MOUNTAIN LION CUB'S---with torn-up sleeves over orangey brown hair reaching to rip me up. He started chasing me. You should've seen 'im, crying and running on all his feet, the freak blue eyes and drooling teeth looking at me like I was dinner. I got yellow as bile and ran up the stairs before "he" could see me.. Then I knew what he was sayin'. By the time I made it upstairs out- of-breath and so out of shit I wouldn't crap for a month. I wouldn't look at a cat or little kids full in the eye from then on, 'cause now I knew what the kid was sayin'. But he wasn't sayin' anymore. Two weeks went by and roaring was the only thing I heard. "He" took his voice, alright. Bet the babe on the Highwind that he's grown up now. Every cat I see since then-----they're out to get me. Gotta calm down. Have a cig. Have twenty. Shera hid the lighter again. Fuck her.  
  
C.H.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 26: You Aren't What You Eat  
  
A glazed gleam coated the blazing eye which he wasn't entirely aware of. Besides shaky movements, stumbling on a wrong foot, and tripping over his tail, there wasn't really anything happening that indicated his other side was hungry. It jumped out of nowhere and wasn't just satisfied with attacking his stomach-----hell, no, had to go for anything and everything--- -probably Drac's friendly reminder that it was lunch.  
  
"You didn't think I'd reveal my hiding-place for free, did you, Highwind?" he gave a smug growl, one half of teeth in an underhanded smile and the other half unlocked in an anguished grimace. Everything about him asymetrical and in clashing conflict, demented and two- faced, that grasped the torn fabric of a bisected soul.  
  
Cid coughed a snarling moan when another godawful pang chomped and gnashed on his stomach.. It pulled at him, pulled him down, grasping his screaming stomach with one set of claws as if an external pain would satisfy the clamor. Maybe numb it so he couldn't feel his insides roar.  
  
The other waited patiently at his quavering side, halved like the rest, that one side battered by a gale of pain as if...the animal somehow channeled all the craving's weight on the human. Or maybe it was just because the dragon was used to these hunger pangs...this was only Highwind's initiation.  
  
Draconis Rex looked on his weakling side with an expectant and uncharacteristic patience. "It was inevitable. You know what you have to do," he urged, feeling half of his mouth fill with foaming saliva that dripped off one set of teeth while the other gnashed madly. Didn't matter to him. He felt the body's external pain, not the internal. That was controlled. It was natural. A sock was a disruption. That hurt. But what was normal...that was normal. That he resisted the pain, and Cid didn't---that was only how it should be.  
  
Cid took a ride through Malebolge. for what seemed like the nth time. .  
He groped for the rain-smeared stone wall and pressed his back on it, and closed one eye, the other Drac got his dirty claws on and kept wide open, keeping the dead SOLDIERs in his view, making this freaking----SICK lust worse than it already was. "Close----- damn you....." Cid growled out of his side of the twisted mouth. "Don't wanna see 'em,  
  
Drac----let go of the fucking eye!!!" He violently clawed at the air, the dragon freezing the muscles of both his arms. "No eye for meat, Highwind. We need both of them. Now go fetch,"he commanded with a haughty flick of his foreclaw. That finally shut the friggin' eye, plunging him into the darkness' safety, the rain pouring around him, his own breath ripping apart his chest. "There's.....no target to go for, Drac. Just me, you, and the dark." He could hear Drac whispering at him like how it used to be. When he was just voices in his head and nothing physical, nothing you could feel or see. When he thought he wasn't real.  
  
"You're still that ignorant human child, Highwind. Even after all these years. Even after so-called 'manhood'----you know..human maturation. Don't you find it laughable how a man is barely different from a child? What're ya------tellin' me?" Cid asked listlessly, stuffing his ears with rain and blocking it all out-----somehow it trickled in through the gaps in the drops. "You remember... when they locked us in the room---they blindfolded us, remember?" he asked calmly. "Ya........you ain't SAYIN' that...." His whole frame shook and the glazed eyes broadened, opened so they were bulging madly as the memory seeped in from his clouded brain. "It was just for his amusement, but I had my feed. CAN IT, DRAC. And you never knew---I had the whole thing. You sensed it---because you're a human---" He gave a musing pause, stroked Cid's broad chin in a passing thought, then changed his mind. "WERE. Don't forget that, Highwind." He pulled both eyes open, the SOLDIERs in unceremonious heaps flooding his sight. "The taste in your mouth. Remember it?" He tugged him sharply from the wall. Like the kid that doesn't know how to swim he held on, turning his back on the lure, gouging jagged, curved marks on the wall that raked his own ears with that shrill scraping.  
  
His enemy wasn't fazed a bit. He was still as good a torturer as he was...back then. Piece by piece, it started to re-form into childhood nightmares-------that weren't nightmares at all.  
  
"You were sick for days. It was all psychological, especially after he told you what it was you ate. He lied to you when he said it was someone you knew." They were real as the dragon. They were real as now. "You were far away from the homo sapiens even then----Stop puttin' your bullshit ideas in my head---" Cid protested vapidly, with a frozen shiver, the words empty and void: he was somewhere else far back in time, mouth open in a kid's terror at the monster under the bed.....the food long digested, long gone-- . "But you lied to yourself. You denied I was there. You said it was a bad dream---you thought you, at the infancy of twelve years, were crazy. You remember that, don't you? Nightly sedatives... we must have a hundred holes. Probably more. The needle was our best friend----Jesus Christ, enough already----goddamn it, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT, CAN'T YA UNDERSTAND??!!" he exploded, burying his head in his claws, casting a broken shadow that melted in the rain-engulfed stone. The dragon took the man's hands off his head, bringing it in the path of the unyielding storm that clouded his child's eyes with the falling fluid that coursed down the rest of his--- and the dragon's body that treaded sweat to stay afloat. Though he knew...it was just him that was sinking.  
  
"I understand perfectly well, Highwind..that you're still denying it. You still think you're crazy. You still don't know why you gave in. I'll tell you why. Hunger. We must feed. It's no different now. I'm sick of your tobacco and baked fish. This is YOUR end of the compromise." The dragon licked Cid's parched upper lip. "Cut it out---freak--" He felt his claws scrape along the stone wall and wrenched his eyes from the motionless SOLDIERs in the street so it wouldn't hurt more than it already did------his own rebelling body and the dragon's voice a broken record over and over again in his ears, his own voice hoarse and cracked from the lack of water-----and food. "Not gonna give in------" He bit his lips. Wouldn't admit that this wasn't the first time he made him eat his food. Probably 'cause he didn't want ro remember it. What it was. But he DID. Why else would he be pathetically hanging onto the wall like this?  
  
Like...LAST time...  
  
He wasn't...SICK like that.  
  
His swimming eyes protruding from his head bursting with visible veins rolled back and he slid down, the blurred shape of the groaning SOLDIERs tempting the dragon. He shut his eyes again. Around him the rain tumbled. Inside him his stomach roared. The dragon goaded with a smile twisted with triumph. "I'll make this easier for you. You just go over there. I'll do the rest. Then it's not really you doing the work. It's---my body, Drac..," was all he said, hanging onto a greased rope and only making it more slippery with this lying to himself.  
  
He came away from the security of the wall, gazed away. Wanted to stop gliding Vincent, limping Nanaki, and that other furball with them. Probably in a hurry to get the hell out of the city. He wanted to stop them----His wasted chlidhood forced his mind to reverse.  
  
I have someone living inside me  
  
But it's still lonely  
  
There's no one that'll talk to me  
  
They're scared of the someone  
  
They're scared of me  
  
No. No way in hell would he get them to come back and see what he was about to do----- whatever flimsy thread of trust was there'd break entirely. Finding himself broken under the weight, he grabbed one of the bodies on the ground, and, that ugly feeling called shame made him furtively drag it behind the rock wall. Like the other members of AVALANCHE, he was used to fighting, to killing when he had to, and didn't think of it much. Barret and Tifa occasionally went on a guilt trip, but not him. He took it in stride. And now he knew why.  
  
He was capable of something that was much worse.  
  
The ex-pilot tried to cover them with his wings but Draconis Rex was used to it---it was his nature. The two badly-fitting hulks sprouting out of his shoulders left the gruesome sight visible to the night visions. Swelling with pride as if about to vanquish the enemy in a battle. "Come on, take the first bite. The human won't feel it."  
  
He lifted the body up by his arms and closed his eyes like the child with developed tastes munching brocolli for the first time. Apprehensive--- terrified of the unknown, what it would taste like. Except for Cid it was different. He KNEW what it tasted like. Drac just had to REMIND him. That this wasn't the first time. This wasn't new.  
  
There were some things that you just didn't do. Man-eating when you were a man was, save for regions that still held such rituals sacred, off-limits in every possible way.  
  
But  
  
he  
  
was  
  
hungry  
  
Cid bit off the hand at the wrist, the sanguine opening pouring a cascade of blood out of the ripped arteries and veins. It pooled up in the ground's cracks. Draconis Rex took the second with delight, Cid with revulsion. It was a wonder it didn't come up again and eat at nearby trash cans. Make a new pothole. Rot his teeth more. Leave a sick taste in his mouth. But the stink of half-digested lunch wasn't nearly as bad as the flavor of the rest of the human corpse that stared him in this half-draconic, half human face, twisted with conscience's burden. But only his conscience.. Draconis Rex WOULDN'T let it go. When you went so far between meals, every bite was precious. Especially since the meals had been nearly indigestible. This would be a meal that he could revel in.. enjoy. When was the last time he enjoyed what was landing in this man's stomach? So he devoured.  
  
The engulfing engulfed all his faculties. Sight by fighting the dragon's urge to look at the feast, hearing the crunch and ooze and and slurp falling into his stomach. Feeling the man spasm 'cause he wasn't dead until Cid started picking at his vital organs that oozed out of his closed hand.  
  
Bite by bite the body disappeared. At the intenstines Cid doubled over, dry-heaving, but his dragon side wouldn't let him throw it out-----goddamn it-----I wasn't made to eat like this---he gagged on the bile and urea that didn't get all the way through the small--- damn it---was it ever gonna end?  
  
At one point he fell beside the sideways-turned corpse and opened his eyes plagued with horror carved in the contorted lines of his mouth at the hollow spaces where there were supposed to be heart and lungs---but they were all in his own stomach.  
  
Why couldn't the fucker stuff the entire shit in his mouth and that was it? Why'd he have to stall...let the taste fill his whole mouth,, let it slosh around in there before he crammed the inedible crap down the food pipe?  
  
If it was inedible..how the hell was he eating it?  
  
Eating plus drinking.....Mako tinctured the blood that flowed down into his stomach, he could smell it mixed along with that iron smell blood has. Some of it was solid and some of it was liquid. It coated his throat all the same...coated his conscience in a staining grime."I ain't a cannibal," the once-man convinced himself. "Drac's eatin', not me. Don't share it with me, Drac, I don't want any fucking more!!!" he yelled through a confused tangle of muscle and bone that scraped against the inside of his cheeked puffed out from all the parts grinding and churning between his and the dragon's teeth. The grave answer strapped another yoke on his conscience. But it could've been he was just trying to make him go on a guilt trip. Yeah. That must've been it. "How do you think I felt when you ate everything that's indigestible to me, those hot dogs and ham sandwhiches?" he inquired with acid burning his words. "Perhaps weighed  
  
together imprisonment was better than eating..." A grimace twisted into a knotted snarl of absolute disgust. "..the toxic waste you call food. But that's the end. From now on we eat men---" Cid lurched foward, his bloated cheeks streaming in human innards. "You're losin' it ?!!" shouted Cid, rocking pitifully on his knees as the SOLDIER's stomach juices dripped down his chin and got caught in the stubble. He fell on the dragon's hands and growled with rebellion racking his throat, "There's no way...NO_WAY. I'm not you, Drac. I...can't..." He backed away form the remains, wild with terror. The dragon's retort was the polar opposite. Controlled, dripping with conviction. "You...'can't'. Humans are always saying that. "can't". You have to. You're living with a dragon.  
  
I'll never be a man, but you can....you WILL BE ME," he insisted with imperious finality.  
  
The liver ruptured and squirted bile over his arms. The dragon forced half his mouth to curl into a frown. The slimy arm didn't dare raise to the foaming jaws. It stiffened. Such a stubborn child. His domineering will pitted against his insolence. This constant struggle.....he was getting sick of it. Why couldn't Highwind subimt and make it easier for both of them? He had already vowed that he'd be in control. Why wouldn't his other side simply accept it?  
  
Perhaps he underestimated the human will. Or at least that of Cid Highwind's. But the battle was getting old. He'd wear him out soon.  
  
The dragon let Cid loosen his grip on the liver, teasing him with the false hint that he had won this much victory. With cruelty embedded in his feral features he asked with biting malice, "Is it safer to leave evidence behind or destroy it?" He indicated the corpse with his hand, still clutching the broken organ loosely. " Everything has to go....." It dripped, crawling like a slug shitting on his elbow, layering it with crap he didn't want to know the name of, practically bathing in the bile Draconis Rex was goading him into forcing down his throat."Imagine what they'll do when they find that liver. Humans may be worth nothing, but their technology is remarkable. When everything settles down here, they'll search for their missing. We flew their planes. We saw Wutai fall. You know as well as I do how they prioritize their missing.. Blue is easily replaced, red is harder to come by, purple is indispensable." He grinned haughtily through the hideous assortment of mashed-up human. "What color is dinner?"  
  
Throwing down the ruptured liver in brash defiance, Cid growled "red" between the muck-immersed teeth, drops of bile spotting the asphalt and the corpse itself, the shreds of a red uniform concealing part of the mngled corpse. But by now he wasn't really hearing the dragon--- --what would he care if the SOLDIER was 1st class, third class, or no class? No way he'd eat the damn liver.  
  
He stood there on his knees apart, the borrowed jeans wearing away in the spilt HCl. Not that it'd hurt him like it does other people..normal people.  
  
".....After this..." he laughed one of those laughs from someone lost and gone from humanity. "..Don't know if I deserve bein' called a 'normal' person. Yeah...normal my ass..." He gagged on the slime heap taking forever to churn in that bloated stomach. The slit eyes wandered to the liver, one eye satiated, the other closed so he wouldn't see the remains that was slowly reminding him of a, though harrowing time, when he was free to carry that little trinket in his pocket that he didn't ever find out what the practical use for it was. .  
They started to look like..  
  
1/35th SOLDIER. Those mini figurines you couldn't do squat with in a fight. The liver kinda looked like 'em. You could laugh and joke and say it was 135th of a SOLDIER. 'Course, it was funny when it was the actual thing, not a sick, perverse parody of it.And the other thing with those minis..Those ones were WHOLE, he reminded himself, growing a sea shade of green that was both disgust and a lead weight of guilt...guilt...and he was a fighting man----if there was guilt in a fighting man, it was hard to sense. Their body was one with the spear, sword, gun. Couldn't fool yourself into thinking it was a man. It was a weapon. Against the Shin-Ra he once fought for and the scores of freaks out there, Cid was just that.  
  
Wasn't the same this time. Shoving a spear into a SOLDIER that's comin' at ya with a meat cleaver bigger than he is------no big deal-----so what do you do with the body? Leave it there. It'll decompose eventually. Dust to dust and all that. Maybe bury it so you don't need to smell and see it decompose. Burn it so you don't need to wait. Or be like those psychos that put the ashes in an urn and carry 'em along with them. Do ANYTHING with it...but don't...EAT it..Maybe if you were up in the mountains and you were gonna die if you didn't---there must've been some fast food joints somewhere here---he didn't NEED to.  
  
He WANTED to.  
  
Guilt grew fat in his gut stuffed over the brim with the remains. The liver became a crime. As twisted a crime as any. And his own personal devil=over- shoulder probed into his anguish and spat it at him.  
  
Why do you feel guilt?  
  
This is for survival.  
  
Don't answer, Highwind. I already know what you're going to say.  
  
'I'm human'.  
  
You're not.  
  
Can the other species eat their own raw?  
  
You feel sick, but you're fine.  
  
This is normal. This is routine. You'd better get used to it, Highwind. You're not one of them.  
  
Cid drilled a crazed stare into the liver, droplets of bile and urea collecting around the organ. He didn't know he licked his upper lip. Just block him out. Not hearin' a thing. Don't believe him. "Maybe I'm one fucked up son of a bitch, but least I'm a HUMAN, fucked up son of a bitch. That's what I got to say to THAT sermon-----" He rebounded unsteadily, standing in the pool of blood and HCl instead of kneeling. Was only a foot or so higher. Didn't make much difference anywhere except the mind. It was still in acid and blood that covered his hands.  
  
Maybe he might've truly won that round. Maybe if the liver didn't start moving on him. Maybe if Draconis Rex didn't prove him wrong. "Hey, ya asshit!" roared Cid, losing all control in his rage, his own want shredding apart the cloak of denial. "I'll teach you to take someone else's dinner, lousy sneak----" He lunged for the liver with no less ferocity than the dragon and grabbed at the organ, ripping it in two and sending a new wave of bile leaking on the asphalt. The shredded lump fell and spurted a last ooze of the fluid that ran a trail towards the invisible darkness . Cid made a blind leap and missed, landing on the pavement, covered in countless poisons that were all engulfed by the Black Rain. Sight was null here. The four other senses intensified to make up for the deficiency.  
  
"HHgnnorghhht brghhorddhh...." A pained note molded the growl from an expected primitiveness to an emotion far more defined. Almost frantic, despairing, raking across Cid's ears, flooded with the rain but managing to hear a bestial growl. Much like his own-- when Drac was first waking up, but whereas you couldn't understand the words, but you KNEW they were words, the second voice that souned like a snake and a nondescript behemoth at the same time, no words to it, no syllables, not even letters. Just.....sounds.  
  
"Nghhroorghh hhhwwragheee Hghhrighhhg dghhrrighhrk hhrreeirghh brghhorddh." The hollow crimson gulfs opened from narrow slits and darted to what in the darkness looked like clothes and skin white enough that it reflected the light. Skin. Human. Scale-less, fur-less---only hair on it might've been shaved 'cause of some chronic disease they call 'vanity'. Smooth-looking, too. Looked like this one preferred chicks. But that didn't matter. The red- eyed creep went after HIS liver.  
  
Cid turned his head towards the pair of red narrows, piercing embers that gave off more light than heat. Looked eerily familar, too. Eerie or not, he glared him right in those demon eyes and picked up the mauled liver, squueezing it protectively.  
  
"Fuck off, that ain't your food--" His lowered gaze again caught those patches of white cradled in night's arm. "You got your own there," he indicated with a jealous snarl of the animal that seeks to guard its boundaries, his words marred as he gagged on the undigested parts that still tumbled on his tongue  
  
. "---Check and...." The last word was lost as the organ churned between both sets of teeth.  
  
As for the second creature, he was too thirsty to notice how twisted the whole thing was--- for a human to be so posessive about the pieces of organ now smeared on one of his palms. Smelled like..liver...He didn't bother scraping it off: the Black Rain was so deep it would wash off soon enough------unlike the blood harvest in the knocked-out bodies in his claws.  
  
It's so...easy...for me..I know when to stop...the instincts don't. Can't take the chance...  
  
Just..ignore everything else, he told himself. Don't care about him. Find it. Then get them to a hospital..Pokémon Center's good enough for now. Anywhere's better than out here, he remarked in his mind, catching sight of the pile of bodies partially masked by the immersing darkness and the brick-and-rock wall. A wall heavy with the iron smell that was so pungrent it rivalled the odor of his own. He tasted the damp air. He was close. A silent leap under the sharp-edged wing and he landed at the blood pool. Safe for now, he assured the limp bodies under an arm bent in the wrong place. He bent his forked tongue towards the liquid, already tainted with the chemical perpetually pouring from the onyx-clad clouds.  
  
While he drank the man with the wings ate, substances made invisible by the dark dropping in miniature cataracts of human life.  
  
The taste was unbearable. It didn't want to seem to go down, just lodged itself there in the throat, choking him good and slow-----like Drac was savoring it, pushing his system to take in what he wasn't MEANT to take in.....he wasn't a fucking cannibal... But he was eating..parts of OTHER PEOPLE, wasn't he? He couldn't lie to himself about that. That was a liver that lodged in his throat and went down slower than Shera. A man liver. He ate a man raw. Every fucking bit of him.  
  
The truth shrieked in his ears.  
  
"I know what you're going to say. 'I'm not a cannibal'. You're right. Men who eat other men---they are cannibals." He passed Cid's tongue over his scaled digits on his hand, refusing to let any part of the repast waste."While we are----- perfectly normal." Cid, close to retching, pressed on hand on his stomach, the standing limp, siezed with mammoth shock at his side. "What makes you fucking think it's normal?" A horror-weakened protest passed through the half-stuffed mouth. "You're wrong, Drac---Eating people.....that ain't normal-----" The retort was without mercy. "For us it is. Don't wallow in your imagined guilt, Highwind," the dragon short of commanded, slurping the pieces of liver from Cid's chin with a sweep of the coated tongue, a growl of irritation weaving its way through the slippery chunks. He twisted Cid's neck as far as it would. Curse his limitations......even with this setback, he snatched the smell of some odious beast invading his territory. Perhaps it was the same one that threatened to steal his dinner. He gave a haughty grumble and snarled through Cid's tissue-caked lips,"I sense an enemy more aggravating than your conscience."  
  
His nostrils snatched the scent, which registered as familiar. But he couldn't be sure...unless he used a call confined to his order.  
  
"HREERGH....."  
  
There was a shifting of claws on the pavement. The invisble form with its flaring eyes answered with its own roar.  
  
"HUOARGH..."  
  
"It's you," Draconis Rex confirmed, his immense pride bursting in the droplets of blood that raced through his body. The other detected a flash of teeth that clenched in the universal sign of hostility. "Wound my honor, would you? I'll teach you to get in my way." His pride swollen with a cut mounted in half of the dragon's teeth, the other half, unchanged from before, .twisted in agony.  
  
"You seem surprised. A dragon connects memory with sound." The other, shadow-immersed, cloaked himself further, receding into the alley, sensing hostility bathing the human voice. . The agressor tracked his footsteps. Anything that would mark him as non- human was painted in black, only adding to Brock's disconcertion at the way the human spoke to him, not out of terror, disgust, and loathing, but of miffed pride. "You're the shapeshifter that threw me out of the sky," the unseen enemy delivered a brutal accusation, exacerbating the invisible's warning instincts further, transmitting signals that tensed his muscles that at this moment, were flexed for fleeing and not fighting. Better for him..his interrogator spoke with the voice which is off-limits, untouchable. Even if this one was in his way, ready to pick a fight with him...  
  
"Grigh nrreeeghhreehhh to HRRUUOTREEGHT ghree ghumaasssssshh," the red-eyed beast explained in his unintelligible tongue in some lingering hope that humanity could comprehend him. It might've been better if he kept his Pokémon mouth shut, because the moment he "talked" he regretted it. He waited for an answer, whether it was a blow or a rock.  
  
But he knew... words wounded more.  
  
"Look, Highwind," laughed the rough, but undeniably human voice, awkward in its gruffness that clashed with a more polished way of talking to sound more important than you really are...like Gio, he thought derisively while he bore the gutting arrow of man's revulsion. "---something more brutish than your kitten and Chaos. I don't think it can understand anything beyond a thrashing," the tenor of his voice changed lwhen he grinned. It sharpens the knife with malice. Brock lowered his bald head on his chest and hissed in a morose acceptance of his worth to humanity.  
  
What's the use of trying when they won't listen? Better to just avoid--- -Brock whipped his head in the other direction, his mouth partially opening to release a patient hiss. Really has a grudge, huh?  
  
Brock felt the rumbling wind behind his back and he latched to the wall with one claw, dropping as soon as the attacker passed under his tail and, scrambling from the alley, swerving to the left across the broken curb and crossing the light that sunk its thousands of teeth in his his eyes, that anguishing light from the streetlamp bent by the earlier stampede that made its crushing mark on the city. The rain still ran high here, and the seemingly perpetual curtain of black added yet another layer of the opaque liquid that guarded him vigilantly, only betraying him when he bolted through a light beam. Only where the shadows weren't absolute.  
  
But the stranger that claimed to be his nemesis tracked by---well, it wasn't sight, because the light areas were so sparse--more so now that some of the lights were busted: glass still littered the indiscernible sidewalk, and the flier was right behind him every second. He didn't stop to turn around, catch a glimpse of the creature so bent on a fight. He still had three to watch out for, and with the foreign path marked by twisted streetlamps, broken windows, collapsed awnings, and various produce submerged in the flood, he wondered if this was truly Vermillion City and not some illusion his mind made up just for the fun of seeing his body squirm one more time.  
  
Can't be an illusion...his folorn thought nested in his head that was bent foward along with the rest of his crouched form, passing through the burning light and the ever-rising Black Rain level. Where it was here and it wasn't in Cerulean. Where he should've been and wasn't. Terror coursed through his dark blood, chilling his heart with a dread that shrieked in audible cries in his head. Nondescript, formless pleas, but gradually growing more defined in his mind's ear, until the reaction spewed from his lips. "Mreghhsteeee......Shhhhhrrrhhhzzreee..." he groaned, the black heart that furiously beat with doubled force propelling every muscle on, fed with the new blood, sending the black form shooting through the liquid of the same hue, surged on because of guilt. Suzy.....she's just a kid. Just a kid..she's going to fight...Hojo...I let her fight. If I didn't Teleport....I could HELP her....how was I supposed to control it?! It's impossible-----I don't know how-----The limber frame dashed under the bulbs aglow with a misty whiteness, hurtling through what was essentially fire. Flame to his body, but ineffectual on his mind that raced as rapidly as he did, riding the crest on a wave of loathing remorse. Don't tell me my stupid mistake's going to cost my family. He gazed at the unresponsive sky. DON'T tell me..... In his mire of despair he stopped stopped fully. His hand wandered to his head as if reaching far away---miles away---to Cerulean, smoldering in the exact same way Pewter did-- Only it was his best friend and the only sister that the cruel madness of life left to him---He felt the mental energy implanted in him sparking---if she could hear him-----maybe the telepathic signals would reach her all the way to the north......  
  
Desperation broke the string of thoughts in some places.  
  
Suzy...tell me if you're alive.  
  
Tell me------  
  
Whatever mental link he tried to establish it was slashed altogether with violent force, and the pursuer rammed straight between his spiked shoulder blades, bashing him front-first on the flooded sidewalk. The fierce impact threw Daisy from his shaken grip and she skidded over the invisible line in the sidewalk and into the road, the straightened arm holding one less human and their transporter bleeding from a scrape on his lip, though you couldn't tell. It closed with the mending rain, and even if Black Rain didn't act like a Kadabra's Recover or a Cure3, it wouldn't matter anyways.. All was submerged.  
  
With a muffled hiss, Brock regained his footing and reached for the dripping body, the persistent shape hovering over his shoulder. He raised his rigid jaw and hissed with the hostility of anger in the place of that fear. So, not a human, huh? It was a statement more than a question on a caustic smirk. Makes it easier. He darted into the street and plunged out again, a tangle of Black Rain sliding off his gnarled heel that barely landed before the entire shape slipped away from the pursuer. It's easier to fight your own kind. They're weaker than us but they're stronger. They have power.  
  
That's how it all got started. First Ivy...then Gio.....  
  
Everyone ended up suffering.  
  
Where is it? He maneuvered through the new Vermillion, so unrecognizable that it might as well have been another planet. Buildings towered above him like it was Celadon and crowded themselves in their competition for space, obstructing any view of the rather modest building that was his target. Now a blind target, curtained in ebony that continued to fall harder than ever. That this side of the street was void of intact lamps meant more security for him, but it masked him with a bloody blindfold.  
  
All the while the flier mimicked his every swerve, climb, and bound. A shadow's shadow.....not like true shadows, of dark and light, intangible, beyond all reach except eyesight, but shadows of humankind. Twisted and stretched out of proportion and molded by the perverse. Disfigured minds produced disfigured versions of humans in some cases, and in others, changed the species entirely. Just for their experiment, Brock growled, slowing as a light in a rapidly approaching distance burned directly in his eyes. Still...no matter who I blame, what does it change, huh? Maybe it's just easier to continue hating. The spurt of rage forced him through the foaming liquid. What good is it to stop? Then you forget it ever happened? That he took away everyone and everything? I had a world. Now it's just ash.  
  
Was Cerulean the same? When he escaped it still burned. He didn't even know if Misty was alive or not----water burning a Gyarados-----was that just another sick joke from the .four-eyed bastard? Or just some gut-wrenching coincidence that decayed a deteriorating hope that Misty would be okay. Okay...fighting Hojo.....not Gio. His arch- nemesis was stupid in rage. This enemy was half brains.  
  
I've got to go back. What am I doing here?..! They're just knocked out. Misty could be dead. I can't leave them out here. I made a promise to her. Can't break it...it's their blood. I told her they'd be safe. I can't-----won't let her down.  
  
The Center lights inflamed his eyes once again and he slipped by the barking Growlithe under the police line and past the cop, spilling globs of the accumulated liquid on the sterile tiles, days of Black Rain pooling in their foaming hideousness on the cold surface beneath him. Automatically he felt unwanted here, his head moving furtively, waiting for Nurse Joy's glowering visage to appear from behind the counter or at one of the vid-phone terminals with four other people with rocks and acid for words. .  
  
But it was just the half-man with the human voice. That now, in the light, was unmistakably the dragon that wrecked Pallet. He grew cautious, falling into a defensive stance. Now wasn't the time to attack head-on. They were equally matched during that brawl, but now he was landbound. Lucky him, his enemy didn't hesitate in making sure he knew he had a disadvantage.  
  
"You've arrived at a corner. Nowhere to escape." He heard a sharp rip behind him as his pursuer clawed through the flimsy tape and struck him in the lower jaw with a balled fist. Brock leaped with a half-hiss, half-snarl of pain and fell roughly on the floo. The dragon leaped on the demon, ready to maul him at will---when he saw the  
  
expression. How used he was for his opponents to either cower or face him with blind determination. Nothing of the sort. The enemy's inhuman lips curled into a smug smirk... It daunted him, that expression. What did this other dragon know about that he could exploit it...?  
  
"Ghrrigh wwraaaaghhshhh hhrrrrighhhht," the creature growled in curt reply, with thr satiated smile marred with contortions of abating pain. ". Nroghhht hrrrghhumaaarghh hraaghhttt hhhraaaaagh." He gazed long and hard at the monster with man's shape, flipping sideways to regain grip with four legs then two, rubbing the broad end of his claws on the bruised shoulder. He stood half-erect with a red grin. "Shhhrrough, gharghhe yrroughh hhgraaghn hhrighnnoossssshheeghhht hhhrrrghiktriiighm....." By now he was almost as erect as a human, with his slime-draped arms crossing. Still with that smug look. bending his mouth upwards. For all that attempt at mimicking a human, the creature's 'words' were little more than one continuous roar. "..HHhrorghhh hddgroughhh hrryhoughh ddhhreseRRRGHVhhhh rrrgheeeeeshorghhh?"  
  
Yet no matter how far away from human speech that sounded, it didn't matter as much when the listener looked just as bad as he did. Nothing human about him either except his shape--the man and the dragon thrown together in one hideous blend.  
  
"I don't speak your bestial language," returned the dragon with a condescending tilt of the head.. "Whatever you can't say in words, say in blows."  
  
"Grrrrrhigh dddrghoghht wwhraaagght troughh friiighhghh," Brock answered, climbing over and around the seats in the waiting area, coating the chairs meant for human occupation in the excess fluid that trickled down his hide. He felt the dragon's shadow run into his own as he set the humans down. "Ghrrigh craaaghht graaaghforghhd trouughh. Mreeeghstie craaghhhhht graaaghfrrorghhd troug---" He stopped "speaking", the very act turning his throat raw and running his heart ragged. Better SHOW instead of tell, Brock resolved. Because this guy doesn't want to talk. He began to walk away from the stained chairs, his job there finished and his promise honored, but another instinct triggered a warning through his mind, of vague, iminent danger.. This isn't the best spot. If the room is vacant...He picked up the two women in his arms and dashed to one of the doors where they kept recovering patients. Occupied or not, he felt compelled to put them there---that unshakable feeling of a looming threat stayed in his nerves, other than the dragon, that stood with a challenging demeanor right at his back, indignant that natural events hadn't run their course.  
  
"Why have you not consumed them yet?" he queried, with a carnivorous breath pushing against Brock's neck, licking his own chops from the leftover taste that hurtled the whole face into a clashing jigsaw of the satisfied expression after a meal and the wrenched and twisted features of complete revulsion at something so foul it made the scales that were visible wherever the rain was not turn a nauesa shade of green. Brock backed away, startled by the one face that suddenly became two, but more startled at the pitiess accusation. "See, Highwind--- this is the cannibal you've been raving about."  
  
"Shhhhrroughh, yroughh thhhghhrighhk Hhrghimmmm shhrrroggh craaaghhibraagh?"  
  
Brock cracked the air with the coarse, bestial laugh, edged with venemous derision. He disappeared into the room, set them on the bed, and darted back with his  
  
claws on the doorknob. The door shut. He faced the floor reflecting the Center's lights against his body. This is getting nowhere fast. If I can't get back to Cerulean..... He closed the hot-red eyes and grabbed at the floor with a misshapen hand, hearing the tile wear away at his touch.  
  
The red grin formed a thin line across the uneven scales. . The only thing Ivy didn't take from him---His only way of communicating with the non-Pokémon..  
  
There was a hundred words he couldn't say right now, probably never again would he use his voice the way he used to. Brock looked at the reptile-man again with a challenging stare. If he didn't listen to reason after this......  
  
. The monster's mockery of a hand shot out, palm flat to his striking enemy's slit eyes. The demonic limb remained there with a calm rage burning, collected, reason-directed as opposed to the unconquerable instincts. He thought he had the hostile creature under control, partially lowering his guard as his hand dropped to the floor.  
  
But his clawed finger never reached the ground. The dragon rushed on him, snarling, diseased with pride,  
  
"You don't have an answer? What a disappointment...and from the Dark clan...what a pity," he derided with a haughty sneer. He grappled for the neck of the weak and useless creature. What an insult---to destroy a dragon that was too ignorant to take the form of his clan. "Show your true color," he commanded, gripping him by the neck and thrusting him against the white plaster wall, an audible bang throwing Brock's head at an irregular angle, that emerged again, the eyes glowing with a leashed rage that burned in its restrained fury. . "I'll teach you to get in my way." The last word was drowned in the creature's mid-pitch roar.  
  
"HHrghigh krowwwghhh yourghhh......" he snarled. "Trryyghh troughh deshhhhtroyyghhh Paarrreghhht. HHrghhhearghh thgreeghmm aghhhroghr graahrghh Hhrghirgh hhhghreargh youurgh aghhroghh. Ghraghhh YOUGHHRR Hrrghihg MRIGHH wwwaryghh-"  
  
The dragon was beyond hearing at that point, hurling the demon on the floor. "The Black Dragon refuses to come out? You're pretty bold to challenge me in the first place...now to not keep your age-old honor?" he roared. "Too bold for your own good," he snarled, shoving his face on the floor with the sole of his foot. Another loud bang, a hiss in the rush of pain, hand on the back of his skull, rattling from the sudden impact that left the back of his skull bruised and his sight blurred by the  
  
imperious foot set like a pompous human on his head. "Looks like you don't live up to your appearance, daemon. The Dark clan isn't as agressive as its reputation implies."  
  
Brock staggered off the floor, his hand clutching his head, the room blurred, and the dragon set to strike again, frustrated with this weak creature that had so much power and was completely ignorant of it.  
  
Brock reached blindly for his voice. He COULDN'T fail her. No way. He couldn't get into a scrap NOW..not when Misty was burning from Bubblebeams and Hydro Pumps. Not when the survivor of his wiped-out fmaily was facing a mammoth lizard with a brain sharper than his claws and with worse intent than Team Rocket. With a final attempt he squirmed out from under the dragon's foot, flipped sideways, wavered on his own feet to a squat and dug his forefinger into the floor before the dragon struck a next blow.  
  
If nothing else was going to get this guy to get out of the way.....  
  
T/-/ERES S0/\/\E0/\/E'S E/\R ST/(K//\/(_- 0(_)T 0F Y0(_)R /\/\0(_)T/-/, /\ /\/ /) Y0(_)RE (/\/_/_/ /\/ (_- /\/\E /\ (/\ /\/ /\/ / B /\ /_  
  
The sentence had no punctuation, none of the conventions in ordinary written speech, but no punctuation could make it clearer than it already was.  
  
Cid stared blankly at what he thought might be letters, then at the freakout that wrote them. It didn't get to him so much that the creep took Drac out of the sky was capable of human speech in its written form. Not so much that.....than what the letters actually read.  
  
He lodged his hand in his mouth, almost terror-stricken at what he'd find. That it'd be right. In bewildered shock, he withdrew his hand, strung with bits of cartilage. Goddamn it, the fuck was right. Hit it dead on the nail. "It's for HIM----you get it, right?!" protested the same monster that had stomped on Brock, with the same voice, the same two-face, with a rougher way of speaking but---"HE'S eatin' it, NOT me.I DON'T want this stupid---ear--- " He chucked it across the room, a hungry roar erupting from his shared vocal chords as his body lurched violently foward, catching the ear and chewing it before it hit the floor, half his body convulsing at the torture and the other revelling in the feast.  
  
Yeah...sure..you're not a man-eater, and I'm a dragon. Stop calling me a dragon. Only reason I can turn into one is because of HER. Don't mistake me for someone I'm not.  
  
While the dragon chewed on the ear, he slipped under the wings, bolting for the door, for the open air. When he heard a snarl of a dog. He flattened himself on the adjacent wall, hearing, listening. The snarl was of a Pokémon barely domesticated, though it had learned to speak one word, while the tamer breed had only a dog's bark.  
  
"Hell," corrupted by its canine voice to "Hergh." So it wasn't the police out there. They used Growlithe, Spinarak-----Ash said one even used a Gastly--but never a Houndoom.  
  
Which could only mean...he snapped his head outside and withdrew it, hissing furiously. The orange Growlithe that was barking was lying on its side. He grabbed at its body---limp, dragged it into the light. A few leaking holes punctured the orange and white fur. He shoved himself outside, attacked by rain, and caught a flash of cerulean, crimson, and flame-orange.  
  
Take it only when you need to, he told himself through the streaming rain. Makes them a little less red. One thing for sure. He had to get out of there. An alternate route? The window. He leaped towards it in a low bound, craning his neck backward to see the dragon-man choking on the ear on the ground. "HUUUOARGH," he caught at least one of them's attention, and he etched rushed letters on the window..  
  
TR0(_)B/?ES ( 0 /\/\ / /\/ (_-  
  
Whether the dragon chose fight or flight, that wasn't his problem. He slashed off the glass layers, thinning it until there was hole big enough to get through, and he slipped through it. A crimson flash flooded the side street. The SOLDIERs and the hellhounds burst in on the Center empty of monsters, aiming their loaded weapons at empty space, finding a jagged tear in the window and bits of plaster falling from the monstrous hole in the roof.  
  
*~*~*  
  
(_- /-\ / /-\ E/-\RT/-/  
  
The oblate spheroid resembled more of what started as a rhombus and ended up as a lopsided oval. The other globe was more expertly drawn, though it ended up lumpy and irregular. But for a city planner and not a cartographer, it was as accurate as it was going to get.  
  
"This is the Planet." Reeve never imagined he'd diagram with his claw rather than a ball-point pen with several extra ink replacements on hand on a clean sheet instead of the brown-black mud beneath hs paws, nor did he ever imagine that he'd have a claw in the first place. Or paws. Or any other part that marks the feline as feline. The drawing was a bit sloppy, but he supposed it was good enough for a cat.  
  
Outside the entrance to the so-called Diglett's Cave the storm bellowed, threatening to uproot the trees and scattering them like the Pokémon that searched with dwindling hope for shelter from the heavy rain. On the entrance's opposite side the cave aside from the Diglett that still found solid ground t burrow in while the rest of the land quaked and crashed with more fearsome power than the ocean and who could care less if it was raining or not, stood the laconic man and lay the red dog. The latter watched the diagram with patient eye. It wasn't carefully wrought, all of the little intricacies such as land masses like Goblin and Round Island, sticking to the main continents. And even those were barely discernible had it not been for the lantern that a forgetful excavator left at the entrance. Vincent held it over the drawing distantly, about as far away from the cave as their scaly companion was. The shadows cast stayed the same as did the places where the light landed. The lantern froze with its bearer, casting a static intertwining of one and the other across the carved-up mud.  
  
As an afterthought, the feline hastily added in the physical and political geography, sketching the mountain chains, rivers, and major desert in twenty strokes or less. He then took a step back, pointing his right paw at the eastern portion of the other diagram, and started,"We're closest to this island chain. But there's no way we'll be able to return from there. There's possibilities here, here, and-----" He leaned on three legs and planted his paw in the mud. "Here. Now, these Xs represent the connection point between the Planet and Earth," he continued, clawing across both drawings.  
  
"What you mean..." Nanaki started, shifting on his good leg, "If we go to those locations, we'll find the Planet?"  
  
"Yes and no," Reeve answered, stepping away from his diagram. "Each 'portal' leads to a specific spot on the other planet. It's likely that the-----" He ground his teeth, a grumble lost in the clenched position of the semi-sharp canines. The wind and rain outsidereverberated their-----HIS twisted achievement. With an audble exhale, he pronounced the words that left a raw taste in his dry mouth, "Research and Development department has that specific information---the executive board were given the portal locations, but as to where they lead and if they'll get us back to Gaia---" He lifted his left paw and scratched the back of his head. "-- your guess is as good as mine."  
  
"Which leaves two options," the dog stated after a reflective pause. "Either check each one until we find one that leads to the Planet, or.....find where Hojo is and find out what he knows."  
  
The shadows and light remained interlocked even as the pallid man spoke with some semblance of a triumph belated by more than thirty years, threatening to trickle emotion into his white lips.  
  
"The latter choice may be-----" The shadows began to recede as Vincent stiffly set the lantern down to make a barely perceptible hand motion, the now-slanted lantern fully illuminating the two planets. His hollow shell of a voice flowed through the cavern, resonating a listless hatred. "-----improbable considering that he is enduring an ordeal that taxes his physical faculties---" Simple payback. He had his way with the world: let the world have its way on him. But the remnants of his own sadism penetrated the seed of his persistent indifference."I do not believe he will be in a competent mental state to communicate to us the needed information." He added with what vaguely resembled an empty laugh, "I doubt he will be able to speak at all."  
  
Nanaki gave a nod of assertion, then hobbled towards the diagram, placing a muddy paw next to "Earth", running his gaze over the map of their current location. It was scrawled in an insert on the "Earth" map. AVALANCHE had already been to one of the towns, and in one of those cities, they had lost-----Cid to Hojo. One who refused to cleanse himself could only produce corrupted creatures---those that yearned to poison the Planet with destruction---the Planet bred different, but good fruit. Men distanced from the Planet bred fruit bathed in toxins.  
  
"That leaves us no choice," Nanaki shoved that other thought to the side, and searched down the map, his muzzle's shadow crossing down the middle..  
  
/ /\/ /) / (_- 0 P/_ /-\ TE /-\ (_)/  
  
CER(_)/_E/- \ /\/  
  
PE \/\/ T E R  
X  
X X  
  
X  
(E/_/-\/)0/\/ S/-/FFR0/\/ X L/-\\/E/\//)ER  
  
\/ / R / /) / /-\ /\/  
X  
  
X  
X X  
\/ER/\/\//_/_/0/\/ X  
  
X X  
/ P/-\/_/_ET  
X  
X  
X X  
X  
  
X  
X / FUSC/-///-\ X  
  
X X  
X  
  
C / /\/ /\//-\ B /-\ R  
X  
X  
  
. "Vincent, cover 'Fuschia', Cinnabar, and Pallet. Reeve, take 'Lavender', 'Saffron' and---" He squinted at the smudged writing. 'Celadon'. I'll take the land in between. Cid----"he gave a startled whimper. In their rush to escape the city, they'd lost their fourth.  
  
Potentially lethal poison their pilot was, he had to at least attempt to detoxify him. Solidfy the faint strand of trust if he was willing to do the same. If both he and the dragon was willing to stay with AVALANCHE.  
  
"I'll find him," he assured, leaving it at that. "Come back here when you find a portal." Nanaki lowered his muzzle in embarassment at his own confidence that it would be so simple. That would be underestimating the tendency for technology to be unreliable. "If," he said a bit softer as Vincent took off into the night. The figure of the cat was still visible in the lantern's light, peering at the diagram. It looked so...incomplete. Mt. Moon and Diglett's Cave aside----  
  
"There's something missing in between Fuschia, Cinnabar, and Pallet. I can't quite put my----"  
  
The battle-seasoned animal's bold eye struck him dead on. Even in the light, still a menace. Reeve drew away from the map, meekly holding down his head.  
  
"Is there something you're not telling us?" Nanaki asked, his tone grave, that one disconcerting eye screwed on the black-and-white cat, and into his mind which he was hastily racking to find the answer.  
  
That was it...Shin-Ra's ships departed from....the Vermillion docks, and .smaller fishing boats from the Fuschia and Cinnabar shore.....  
  
"Cinnabar's an island," Reeve muttered.  
  
"You could have mentioned this earlier," Nanaki growled in exasperation. "It's up to-----" He halted, nose-down, pensive, fearing its deadly implications. "--Chaos, now." He stared at the map, doubtful if the cat was really on their side. Another cut in the fabric of trust. Perhaps Reeve wasn't physically duplicitous, but there was that other kind-----liars, which he detested and suspected of far more worse ills---his reaction to Yuffie's long-forgotten escapade was enough to reveal how he viewed them. Not much had changed. On the other hand, it could have been a coincidental forgetfulness-----but from a former Shin-Ra, that made it all the more suspicious.  
  
In time he'd see. Reeve passed the first test. Whether or not he proved himself the second time, that was up to the cat. That kept his attitude civil, for the time being.  
  
"Not all the portals are on land, then."  
  
"Exactly. It was a sure way to retain Gaia's population so there's more people paying the electric bill. And if you want to know which ones are in the air, water, and land---don't ask me."  
  
Nanaki watched the feline slink into the night. He then cast an eye on the diagram. The host of Xs was a deception. Who knows, one out of all of them could be on the ground. Within reach. At least for they who gravity tied. There was no question about it. No matter how thin the thread of trust ran between them, they needed Cid on this search.  
  
"There's not much of a choice."  
  
Nanaki limped out of the cavern and began the---according to the map---westward trek to Vermillion. Three of his legs were wounded, two out of the four he couldn't lick without bending them and risk ripping a tendon. So the cuts and gashes on his hindlegs went untended, and he was stuck using his front legs, one of which bore a healing slit that still bit at the entire leg whenever he moved it, the thin wound jealous for attention and constantly reminding him that it was there and it hurt.  
  
The wind didn't help matters any as it blew his coarse fur backwards and whipped his bundles of tied hair against his neck. His two feathers The city loomed above his black nose---close if he could run. He had run to the cave in haste to get out of the city, but something gave way on the way, and there was no way he could run back..  
  
At this rate he might as well crawl around on his rump like some dogs do with an unreachable itch. Cid could have left the city already and he could be here, knee-deep in earth and rain, debating with himself if he should walk on his paws or his flank."It's wasting time," Nanaki decided, and sat on his stiff haunches gingerly, planted his forepaws several feet ahead of him, and with a rowing motion, brought the lower portion of his body foward, carving a rut in the rolling mud.  
  
Either way, it was going to be a long trip.  
  
As his tense eye wandered he caught sight of bushes and fruit, leaves-- -a remorse came over him--if he did anything wrong in his short lifetime, it was that he spent too little time exploring the medicinal properties of what the Elders and young children collected outside of the canyon. He knew that some acted like a Restore Materia or a Heal, but as he saw the vast variety blowing in the volatile wind, the berries, leaves, some which had roots barely clinging to the loose soil, he regretted that he spent more time on the hunt than the gathering....he couldn't tell which ones were which. It was times like these when he really yearned for Bugenhagen's presence.  
  
He bowed his eye towards the piles of mud alive under him, and reasoned, "They could be poisonous. I've never seen these fruits before. Maybe they won't heal these wounds," he decided, pulling himself along on his front legs in a sort of rowing motion that was distressingly slow, but at least he was moving. The cave behind him grew more distant and the city swelled. "It's more of the wilderness than the open land," Nanaki muttered reflectively through a jawful of wind and Black Rain. Not that he hated the city...this Vermillion was harmless aside from the SOLDIERs, but it wakened sleeping memories. How closely it resembled Midgar, as he'd seen it between cage bars while he was transported to the 68th foor, with its towering pillars of concrete, and the perpetually dark sky above, with helicopters swarming around the hive, coughing their pollutants into what used to be pure air. For a long while he pointed his wolfish nose to the sky. What a shame it was, that his people couldn't teach Midgar's pestilence to become pure again, for once a thing was soiled it was hard to clean it.  
  
"Like trust," Nanaki bowed his wolfish head, and plodded on his way. Was it useless? Maybe it was the dragon that he couldn't trust, and Cid was still his own person? Or maybe he was a fool, and he'd find the silver dragon on a different wind, with Cid just as bent on indiscriminate destruction like the dragon was.. His suspicions tilted his muzzle upward again. The clouds were hidden in the storm, no way to tell if their lost member stayed in the city or had fled.  
  
He headed for his destination again, mud clumping in his fur, soothing some of the wounds that paled in their significance as he neared the city. A short distance away he picked up the smell of machinery. Strange...it wasn't this far away---maybe the winds were carrying father than they usually did. But there could also be a possibility that......  
  
"They've regrouped." Across the city border he saw a living worm that consisted of SOLDIERs and great lumps that must have been artillery-----tanks and cannons and that other kind of beast---of plating, wires, gears, bolts, tubes, machines in machines, as complex as a living being. But these, as a warrior, fed fear and doubt within him more so than organic enemies. The latter could be reasoned with if they were rational thinkers. But machines didn't think. They had no autonomy. A cannon couldn't prevent itself from firing. A man fired it.A tank couldn't stop itself from moving: a man operated the controls. That's what made them all the more deadly. "I can't go in without becoming a target," he told himself. "Perhaps there's a hole in their defense," he rationalized, extinguishing his tail under the mud. If he had to move, better to move aided with stealth. Stealth worked with the mind, strength with the body. He was a logical dog, and if this yields this, then that is true or untrue. If he was wounded in three of his legs, there was a definite chance that he wouldn't be able to fight any more SOLDIERs until they mended or he rejoined his comrades. He was brave, but not rash. Rash was illogical. Rash led to a short life. He hadn't existed for forty-eight years by being overly bold.  
  
"The Gi...they threatened the canyon from underground." He stared intently at the human worm guarding their mechanical titans. An idea worked into his functional brain. He took his front paws and attempted the skill that his breed were masters of.  
  
The mud started to pile behind him, steadily, clumping in rounded heaps that marked his progress, made slower that in he was using only two paws intead of four, but gradually he found himself sinking, the stabbed ground giving way underneath the mechanical working of his paws, concealing him from the deadly enemy at the city's border, that stood mindless hulks of towering metal.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED........  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Chapter 27 coming soon! ^^ 


	27. Egress

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Hello out there! One correction: Chapter 8, misspelling of eyes, it should be "eye". And, after several unsuccessful attempts, I think Barret's dialect is finally polished. ^^ Another change-scene-often-chapter. Bear with me. ^^  
  
*~*~*  
  
"....Well?"  
  
A voice with the lushness of amply-watered foliage disguising a bed of thorns posed this unantagonistic query. In the impregnable umbrage, none could discern human forms from the shadows: they might as well have been phantoms granted speech, and would disperse with the tide of air at tidings of dawn, if such ethereal spirits were confirmed to have existed in the first place. Light footfalls clearly established these specters as solid, and moreover, of the homo sapien specie, further ascertained by the whitish fingers delicately rolling over the stiff knob that hadn't been turned in ages devoured by apethetic cruelty..  
  
With a click it faded out and then in, an archaic light source on its last hours. The flickering bulb emanated a dim, pallid light that was only sufficient to mark out the vague outlines of the objects locked in the tubes, equipped for all purposes: sometimes a Mako vessel, others what it was at that time: a dungeon for the gods.  
  
At least, that's what the locals would say. The captors of these so- called deities knew better. "Sacred"? "Holy"? "Beyond understanding"? There was not a single question that was unanswerable. No mystery. Inquiries...always answers. Even if it took a lifetime or more- --there was always an answer. They removed the "un" from known, and the "in" from finite.  
  
The ancient lamp swung as the pendulum does, in rythmic time as a searching bat flitted past it, flinging restless shadows over the table, rusted from neglect and draped in cobwebs and dust that shrouded the incriminating liquid from detection of the expiring bulb suspended above it. Each laborious swing, each effort tainted the near-silence, for it intruded on the low hum of rather anachronistic machinery that permeated the corner of the timeworn laboratory. The recently-built equipment was no more out of place than what the dying light marked as youths that stood in front of the semi-cyllindrical containers.  
  
They say innocence is lost earlier with the passing generations.  
  
Locals would say these glass prisons contained objects of worship and of scorn-----but, molded as they were, both labelled magnificently hideous, one less so than the other for certain.....traditionally despised traits, but beware the deception of appearances. These youths knew outsiders would form their perceptions based on that, and they alone would know the truth...in time they began to believe it themselves, or at least, that is what they stated publicly.  
  
In their pursuit and application of knowledge, they found occasion to mock the other "truth".  
  
Even so.....There were certain individuals that were a bit edgy, like the newcomers, those that didn't entirely reject a smidge of morality. The tall, light-haired man was one of these, peering through the pale tube with a loose ring-shaped mouth widened in disbelief. He pushed his head closer to the glass, gazing dumbfounded at the creature trapped inside.  
  
"Is it really necessary for all this?" He had a sort of weak, feeble voice, quite mousy, some would say. For all of his height most people looked down at him-----particularly because he was young and inexperienced compared to his ancient superiors. But he was exasperatingly oblivious, and he'd chatter and prate, stoking the irascibility of his younger colleague, because the last thing she desired was a speech about the ethics of the work. And in the relatively brief time she knew Elm, she knew that once he opened his mouth it would take a thread and NEEDLE to shut him up.  
  
The incessant squeaking of bats and other basement-dwellers were easier to tolerate that this constant blab: ."I mean---you have to nurture Pokémon in order for them to be worth anything on the battlefield. You can't just leave them in a tank--they'll remember that--Pokémon have good memories, you know---it was in Professor Oak's report in the Celadon Scientific Journal---the sample size was small, but ten Pokémon became great at combat, and the other ten refused to fight for their trainers and became very---" He fished for the words, his nerves unfailing under the poisonous stare of his cohort. Sometimes a thick skull is the best weapon. "....b-i-tter.....mmmpffhh---" The man found his mouth sealed when the female clapped her nimble, dexterous palm against his dry lips.  
  
So this is the famous Professor Elm, blabbermouth extraordinaire.  
  
"I think I hear a MOUSE in the lab...." she stated with a twang of irritation in her voice of toxic syrup. It was at times deceptively pleasant, a substance so sweet that it was difficult to feel the barbs underneath it...until they gouged right through your hand.  
  
Her other hand creeped towards her pocket, hidden from view, was already fidgeting with the different components of her best friend, fitting them together with expert speed, and ready to wield with deadly accuracy. She had it raised above his head, the fluid bubbling with predatory tenacity, while Elm blubbered, unaware at the obvious hint for silence. The two shadows that fell across the floor under the table stayed her hand halfway on its speedy journey to his head. She released her grip over his mouth and concealed the locked-and-loaded weapon in her labcoat pocket, feigning innocence. Her intentions finally sunk in and the bewildered man gasped for air, losing his thought in the process. "G-good evening, Professors!" greeted the flustered man, while aiming a puzzled stare at Ivy, who was casually holding another syringe up to the light, viewing its contents with a smug look that read, 'What did I do?'  
  
The broader of the shadows spoke, walking partially into the dim light that revealed rather ill-intentioned features. In one, stiff, large hand he gripped the creaking, iron handle of a local's lantern that he set down on the nearest table. One might say he wasn't lighting the way for himself---he ventured into the unlit space beyond the scant circle of illumination and navigated through through the pitch-black hall as if it were flooded with light. One might have said he had superior-- -unnaturally so---eyesight. Others might say he had been down there countless times---whichever the reason--he emerged from the black hall holding a clipboard and a ball-point pen. He set the clipboard down---the ink was red, no less. Ivy detested that color. Black ink would've been much more clear. She less than discreetly balanced the clipboard in one arm, reading the uintelligible scrawling of 'failure' under a blurred 'Z'. The rest was chicken-scratch. She bent her head sideways in an effort to read the rest of it, while the first shape--- the one with night-vision, answered Elm in a rather non-committal manner,  
  
"If it were evening instead of daybreak, this subject-----" He pointed with a lightly-wrinkled finger towards the second tank to indicate the far less active of the two captives---the one that society found easier to despise. "--would be aware of its predicament." His voice was removed, perhaps not as much as the other one with the glasses, but enough to be hateful. When he spoke, it was with perturbing detatchment, even the warped ambition itself unimportant. What it was.....it was hard to tell. Some minds held cobwebs. His held obscurity that, once removed, tore away the disguise of an unspeakable hell. "It was, as you know, born with a more aggressive nature, but is strictly nocturnal. It cannot venture out in the daylight without inflicting pain to its optic nerves. The first, being what it is, is diurnal but the night holds no adverse affect for it. I made sure of that." The broad-shouldered man strode away from the tube, that seemed to contain another sort of pump---closer observation would give away the hue of the liquid inside this prison. Both of them---not the one directly adjacent to it, but the other on the far side of the dim laboratory. The man's heavy shadow passed across the decrepit flooring. He lightly tapped the glass of the containment tube.  
  
"This is the mother of the inactive one--she put up quite the struggle, according to my colleague here." He paused to hear the siren-like wail of the third monstrosity, nature's reject sculpture---"As you can hear, the subject's aversion to light is inherited from its mother." He didn't so much as flinch as he took the lantern and dangled it directly in front of it. Its bound limbs flailed desperately to shrink away from the terrible light that burned hotter than flame. "She normally does not act this violent--- the transition from wilderness to captivity was quite difficult for her. If she does not acclimate within six months, I may have to make adjustments." The demonstration over and the other old man scrawling this preparatory data in the clipboard that Ivy had thrown on the table after taking a cursory glance, the large hand held up the lantern and shifted his gaze with unusual suspicion. He drew the lantern close to him....as if guarding the method in which he extinguished the fire. He opened the lantern, grabbed at the candle, and withdrew the thick hand without so much as an outcry of startlement or pain. The unblistered hand sunk into his labcoat pocket, and the figure turned to the other scientists. "Well, gentlemen..let us proceed."  
  
The greener youth upturned his open-mouthed countenance towards his squat elder.  
  
"Are you saying--o-one's a human and one's not? They look--alike---"  
  
It wasn't until then when the ghastly pallid, oily man with the clipboard and protruding head and hunched gait decided to speak.  
  
"I suppose you are insinuating that 'Satan' resembles 'God'..." He made a point to overstress the two names in pointed skepticism. "As for the subjects, yes-----that was human--that is Pokémon. Remarkable, is it not?" he questioned with the slightest of grins, his slight exhale pouring an alien toxin into the already-poisoned laboratory. He lightly fingered the signature weapon in one hand, playing nature's game with alarming indifference. "You see, genetics is no longer a game of chance.....or that ever-popular notion----- Fate. It does not exist anymore...." The glowing turbulence of the vibrant fluid stormed inside its glass casing as the older man lifted his head, covered thinly by a dilapidated ruin of hair that obscured the two green areas that leered at the word."----.it never did. But now its non-existence has been proven...."  
  
Well..here's my initiation.....gulped the young man, fingering the strange--almost cryptic emblem pinned on his---and his colleague's labcoats. He hadn't really analyzed the plaque until now, easily immersed in one pursuit, hardly two at once. Now this gave him occasion to examine it.  
  
It was pentagonal in shape, emblazoned with a globe. The fingers of a hand that grew more monstrous as it proceeded from fifth to first finger clutched the sphere.A green substance split the planet...the locals referred to it more than once as "Mako" As for the human fingers, they were cut and bleeding. It didn't occur to him then..that the emblem signified the eventual goal of the amoralistic society. All he knew was that the symbol was unnerving in its high-minded eccentricity. He looked up from the badge, more than a little rattled. He was beginning to wonder if Professor Oak had introduced him to the most upstanding of people here.  
  
As for the gorgon, she remained fixated on the more---rugged-looking creature, the one they had to use a specialized PokéBall to capture---and even then, had to sedate him multiple times. The wrath of hell smoldered in its eyes that sluggishly wandered the hollow tube and the world outside---sometimes it cried for its mother, who grew increasingly inimicable at her offspring's distress....him floating in the opposite tube, barred by glass walls, trussed in wires and cords that connected to machines that were designed to analyze brainwaves, rate of respiration, pulse, and other vital functions, a perfunctory tool for the monsters that had captured her and her son.  
  
All she knew was that it inflicted and undeserved paind and hurt. A full- blown roar warped the greenish liquid in the tube, eliciting a subdued, half-formed, undeveloped growl from the offspring. No doubt that these would intensify once the sun set. When hell's children came into their element...or so the old folktakes went, lying about the truth that insisted it was merely the natural design of the genes.  
  
How...cute, she mused, running her gaze up and down the container. She could have sworn that that defenseless freak of nature recoiled under her stare, sensing one far more disfigured in her soul. Ivy cocked her head slowly, grinning like the devil. The devil....The aforementioned spun on one heel, her gleaming eyes of venom piercing the hunched form of Professor Demoni's former assistant--now his equal--his junior by ten-odd years. She took an immediate disliking to him. Because of her general hatred of the Gaians and her superiors, and because he reeked of Mako that he was OBVIOUSLY infusing into himself, and that he was a bleeding hypocrite since the Planetouched was aware of who aided in the creation of the famed one- winged angel, she exploited every opportunity for insult.  
  
"Hmf. You'd think an outspoken ATHEIST like yourself woudln't be so hypocritcal as to imitate mythical creatures, much less MENTION the possibility of a deity," Ivy commented with a smug, flat frown. She didn't expect that the wiry man would be so observant: she judged all men as unobservant and thick-skulled, and if the spineless wimp with too much empathy and not enough vision and plain common sense was any indication...  
  
The grease-filmed scientist retaliated rather promptly.  
  
"First...a 'mockery' would be a more appropriate term. That lifeform is evolution's doing. It is only fitting to create a mimicry of its opposite since nature has not made that available to the project...." His unemotional tone developed an undercurrent of acerb that betrayed he wasn't entirely uninvolved in this verbal exchange.  
  
"Secondly....my religion...or lack, thereof, is irrelevant to the experiments...Thirdly,.. I do not believe it is your place to criticize, especially since you have no useful blood to donate to the Order..." He shuffled closer to his challenger, lowering his voice so Demoni's aging ears wouldn't hear the portion of their conversation that was more....confidential. "So, my dear...find a method of being useful.....or I will find our own use for you that will be purely parisitical....." he warned with ruthless detatchment. Ivy, grudging behind a perfectly placid mask, gave a smooth salute and listened loathesomely for the carnivorous steps to die away.  
  
You'll get yours. Wait a while and we'll see who's on top.  
  
"He's right, Professor Ivy," the eldest man took her revengeful fantasies and crushed them without ceremony. His beaded, dagger-sharp eyes were reminiscint of a man she despised...a man currently 'earning' thousands---millions off of his dishonest inheritance----- She could see the resemblance. Like son, like father, she mused raging to herself as their leader finished his lecture.  
  
"You will do well to know your place in the Order." Ivy boiled underneath the lying mask while Demoni curtly changed his tone from admonishing back to neutral and typical, erasing all sign of a conflict. "Now...wake the subject," he gave the frank order. "I want to observe its response to this stmulus." He strode to the table chock-full of empty vials, microscopes, and unfamiliar apparatus. There was some oddly-shaped glassware that the man's tan, leathery fist, much like a reptile's hide, grasped not unlike the half-human hand that gripped the world on their insignia.. He held up the glass, brimming with this ever-twisting aqua energy that spun and wove, threadlike. You know what this is.."  
  
"Psychic energy," Elm squeaked in astonishment. Ivy raised an eyebrow. It had taken a full twenty seconds to make that observation. "How did you--?"  
  
"In its raw state," Demoni replied with practiced ease. "By tracing the origin of the Psybeam and various psychic attacks, I made a curious discovery.....that energy originates as matter. Psychic Pokémon---including this one--contain an extra component in their brain that generates this secretion which is released as energy. After analysis of the reactions, I have found that the process is artificially reversible..raw psychic energy can be converted to.....for our purposes,"---He took a receptacle of identical size and held the other arm up, "--liquid..." He strode to the electronic hulk, lifted open a compartment on its side, and poured the 5 liters or so of fluid, dyed a blinding white. He closed the compartment with a shove of his weighty hand and stood up, aiming a parasitical gaze at the uneasy creature through the glass."The subject, being formerly human, has been administered the altering chemical without any abilities specific to a Pokémon. It must be infused separately." He waited rigidly, without turning to the woman seated at the other panel, her eyes, marked by a lazy droop that she never heard the end of, sprinting agilely across the spans of readouts and output. "Professor Ivy...what is the condition of the subject?"  
  
"Respiration, normal," Someday, "brainwaves," you  
  
"pulse steady at," old activity---" codgers. "--normal."  
  
Demoni raised a commanding forefinger at the youth, still peeking through the glass, watching the trapped human-turned-Pokémon yell and cry.  
  
"Um..I don't think it wants to be here..." he concluded. Demoni first ignored it, as if he hadn't said anything at all, but soon glared at him so imperiously that the younger scientist zipped his mouth and walked away from the tube. The crying grew louder at this lost salvation, this last barricde to torture removed and the awful torment yawning before him.  
  
Elm squirmed uneasily in front of the man, shorter than him in stature, but managing to be freakishly terrifying. Was he standing in front of a fellow human or a Pokémon like those imprisoned in the tubes? A Pokémon wearing a genetic disguise that made it doubly hideous. A Pokémon that may have fooled the top researchers--But----whether that surmise was right or not, he submitted without any more dispute.  
  
"You..initiate the pump. Read the internal concentration level."  
  
For the first time, Elm could detect actual words from the pleading monster---"help me", "don't do it," a thousand other expressions that cried for mercy. Elm gave a sympathetic look to the hideous creature, its eyes slanting diagonally in fearful sorrow. Elm trampled his conscience and twisted the knob that activated the device, the central button on the panel radiating a blinking light and a faint humming generated from the cylindrical casing. Elm pulled down the far left switch, and the device warmed up. The numbers "000" and "%" flashed red on the hollow screen.  
  
He bit his lip and pulled down the final switch. The numbers ascended. The pump sent the pulses of fluid through the transparent wiring, penetrating the creature's skin, thousands of pinpricks stabbing into its hide made less resiliant just because it wasn't broken in yet, so it hurt more---worse than a shot at the doctor's office, because those were transient and didn't hurt as much as if a needle was jabbed in and stuck there just to make the person feel as much pain that could be squeezed out of such an action. And though for some of them this wasn't the main objective, it was certainly an acceptable, even encourageable by-product.  
  
A piercing scream ripped out of the creature's mouth, chilling the consciences that had not yet been completely immersed in cold blood.  
  
"10..20..."  
  
"Annghh...what're you doing? That hurts!!!!!" the creature cried with a human voice, punished with a gush of the suspension chemical that poured down his throat and choked his screams, strangling the cries that strived to be plain and clear..  
  
"30..40..50--sh-should I keep going?" Elm stammered, the nightmarish numbers ever-ascending, pumping more of that liquid against the natural balance that normal genes had provided, force-feeding him Psychic energy-----some humans, specifically Saffronians, could hone their mind to achieve and develop that ability, but there was a set limit to theirs---only a Pokémon could posess the ability in such amounts it was destructive on a massive scale...  
  
"Someone---please-----!!!!"  
  
"60---70---Professor, it's more than half-saturated-----!" the youth protested, his whole body shivering. He couldn't read straight. It might be 70-it might be 700. Either way, all of it was wrong.  
  
"It......hurts....."  
  
"80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 9-94-----" he faltered, sweating, hot, sick----- he let his head fall in his arms, eliciting a "you're a pathetic sot" glare from Ivy. How much she wanted to throw Elm from the controls and speed up the process tenfold, to prove that she was good enough for the Order.  
  
She waited, a vulture's anticipation, following a weary traveller that was sure to expire.  
  
"Over-saturate it." The order was less severe, equally imperious in its own right, quiet and restrained.  
  
"95, 96, 9---what?! I-I'm all for strong Pokémon b-but---" stuttered Elm, his eyes broadening in feeble objection behind his thin-lensed glasses. Again, Hojo lowered his voice. The slight green mist clouding his eyes gleamed in quiet menace, and he threatened in a hushed voice, further muted by the Pokémon's human scream.  
  
"Do you see that table? It has fallen into disuse ever since that day...I long for it to be occupied.."  
  
Elm gave in miserably, and with no will counted past 100---the unfortunate thing probably was ready to explode. Its arms and legs were swelling, bulging from the excess amounts of chemical that pounded through its body that couldn't be more than_five years of age...  
  
The suffering man knocked his head on the unsympathetic panel and peeked out from over it, mentally defeated.  
  
"105...110...Profes-----"  
  
Elm looked pleadingly at Demoni, his final recourse, detatched and unaffected. The elder scientist's fists clenched loosely at his sides, and once or twice he imperceptibly bit his lip. His eyes read, "Do as you were told" , his conscience with enough pure remnants that he was AWARE this was amoral abuse, but far too tainted with his first ---subject that he did nothing to end the torturous process.  
  
The count dragged on, and the screams grew more shrill and higher- pitched, eventually changing into a shriek that lanced the stoniest of wills with spears draped in guilt. But there are those with more resilience, with a tainted conscience, some with none at all. These were the subhumans that stood unimpassioned with guilt. Guilt didn't exist.  
  
"130..."  
  
"HELP---"  
  
"140..."  
  
"STOP---"  
  
"170....."  
  
AGHHHHHHHH!HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  
  
"200......"  
  
The numbers kept climbing while the wires snapped in two, shocking the innards of the creature without mercy, the frying power so potent that it ended the creature's agony.....at least for now. It fell on its knees at the tube's metallic bottom, knocked unconscious from the violent shock.  
  
Elm with a clammy, sweat-soaked hand switched the awful device off and breathed unevenly, still hearing the pain of the monster expressed in such plain language that his captors did not understand, for they were the subhumans. The boy was still young. He could only bear it for now... unaware that he and his red-eyed companion who awaited similar torture when the sun submerged would eventually posess the strength to hold the world at mercy.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 27: Egress  
  
*~*~*  
  
It didn't rain much in Corel. Not that anyone who lived there expected a lot of rain. Depending on who you asked, practial Corelians with their feet on the ground said 'cause it was on the leeward side of the mountain, and the ones that ever went out to Wutai insisted that Leviathan was pissed at them. Whichever side they took it ended up being dusty and dry for more of the year, and no amount of offerings to the marine creature was going to bring any more rain. It wasn't as parched as the desert a couple miles south---that was hell in your backyard, and the big storms lasted longer in the town, just enough water for the land to get by. If they were short on rainwater one year, they'd get their water fresh from the Gongaga River. It wasn't a big deal long as there was coal to mine. Nothing was a big deal unitl the Shin-Ra. Nothing was a big deal until Corel got turned into a scorched dump.  
  
"Drowned dump ain't much betta," Barret noted, his creased, squarish forehead streaming in Black Rain that bled down his thick neck and plunged into his broad shoulders, stabbing like frozen blades through the hardy, calloused layers of skin, icing his muscles cold. And it wasn't 'cause he was from Corel--he hadn't been back home in a long time, and was by now acclimated to Midgar's rancorous wind. But even Midgar, the place to be for bad weather, didn't dump torrents like this.  
  
"So damn hawd t'see," Barret groaned through a bossy gale and another throatful of the battering liquid. The howling wasn't distant anymore. The freaks were waitin', sharpening their claws and advancing in invisible droves---hiding in their artificial cloak. Not that it wasn't a fair fight. The hordes were unarmed. His gun-arm was loaded, and he didn't have any regrets gunning down nameless monsters that were out for his hide. "Awright...c'mawn, gimme all yuh got!" Barret challenged, not sure if he was soaked in his own sweat 'cuz he was shaking underneath all that human muscle. But ready or not, here they came.  
  
One of 'em weaved serpentine around his mud-immersed boot that planted the weighty man firm in the turbulent soil. Another came at him from behind, tanklike in its plowing, another dropped out of the sky, swooping overhead. Barret whipped the gun at the closest pair of glowing embers that alone pierced through the induced night, arrows of flame that crackled obstinately before the death machine.  
  
But they still held their shield. The swollen cumulonimbus guarded its offspring tenaciously. That was its purpose. How it was designed correlated with its fuction. The inorganic weapons..... even non-combative machines, vehicles, engines, motors, the substance was manufactured to reduce them. What would it care if the human was well-meaning? It couldn't distinguish what technology was used for what purpose. It was as cold and indiscriminate as its architects.  
  
The bullets rattled out of the gun and snuffed out the closest fires, dragging out yelps and howls from the fleeing monsters. "Shoulda known...dey ain't gonna die wit' jes' one roun'," the man realized. "Goddamn it, Tifa, why'd yuh get yo'self lawst?!" he bellowed hotly, sending a second pulse of bullets out at the swarm. "Yo, L-Dawg!!" Barret bellowed into the abyss, the twisted flames giving him answer, circling and leaping like a pack of Headhunters.  
  
For every one that crept back, two of them advanced. Either they'd get the message and stay the hell away from him or he'd be out of bullets first. Or it could be...neither? The AVALANCHE leader didn't count on getting disarmed by the rain ITSELF...until the stump of his arm got lighter than it was supposed to be with its heavyweight armaments...'till he heard hissing as the rain seared through the gun, shells, eveything, the liquid pouring in a melting glob before it disintregated. The few pieces of Materia he had lodged in it landed in the ground, giving off a grinning glow.  
  
"Ah get it...dey're levellin' da playin' field bah takin' mah arm---" he growled, clumsily forcing open his other--temporary weapon: the broken umbrella. It was real pitiful, but it kept 'em off his back, the wind turning it inside out and jabbing the other points of the umbrella into the more agressive ones. He wasn't no swordsman, but blind thrashing was gonna have to do for now. "Can't do shit widdis awm---" He flailed the stub angrily, hurling the umbrella foward in a rage. "Smooth, Wallace," Barret berated with grinding teeth. He dove for the umbrella, grabbing for the slimy handle with his one good arm. One with eyes tumbling and crashing like landslides bit the other side, ripping through the flimsy material and chomping on the other end of the handle, baring its teeth and thrashing its head menacingly."Yo, whatta yuh doin'?!" he yelled, yanking on his only defense against the scores of freaks ready to knock him dead. It didn't back down easy, fighting for the umbrella like a dog battles for a bone, dragging Barret off his feet. He plunged his back foot into the earth, trying to resist the monster's perisstent grip, but he kept getting yanked foward. Didn't help he was going at it one-armed. With a frustrated shout he kicked the mud in its eyes, the glow vanishing and a sibilant cry slithered through his ears.  
  
"Gsssssaaaaaaaaaa......"  
  
Barret was a powerhouse but knew when to act fast when he needed to. He grabbed the umbrella out of its clenched jaws and swung it straight for its head. The aggressor yelped at the impact. "Dat ain't enough foh yuh?" he yelled, dropping the umbrella and plunging his good hand into the mud where the bits of Materia dispersed slowly as they sank and flung them. The chunk of Materia lodged into its eye, and he gave it a solid right hook in the head, sending it a couple inches back as well as awakening its demand for retribution. "Dat wasn't da best move, Wallace---now dey godda reason fo' killin'----"  
  
It lunged and he bolted as fast as he could, pouring oaths in the sticky air as he slipped and glued himself in the churning terrain.In his scare he almost forgot why he was out in this crazy storm to begin with. "Mebbe Tifa wen' back t'd' Ketchm's," he reasoned. Didn't hafta look behind his back to know that those fireballs and landslides were chasing him. Their stamp as they traversed the mud with far more ease than he, their vengeful growls...he already knew. The one with Earth in its eye pursued perfectly well with its vision obscured, out-running the rest.  
  
The AVALANCHE leader made the rain-stained door and banged on it wildly. "Yo, Mz. Ketch'm!!" The voice had more than a degree of urgency. It sweltered with--panic? Even Barret Wallace got yellow once in a while. The horde lost him, but the freak chewing apart his umbrella had him in earshot. He heard it coming up real fast...Not even he could blame himself for getting scared. "Open da door!!" After all...he was only human.  
  
"Gsaaaaaaaa.....!!!" The monster attacked from behind, a claw swipe away from him. From this close, he could feel its breathing on him, seeping through his clothes, like it was shoving him under quicksand by the feet----when the door opened part of the ways, wide enough for the timid gaze to peek through and see Mr. Wallace gripped by hysteria. So they didn't all leave, the people that guarded the house...  
  
She hastily removed the chain and pulled open the door, the big man stumbling through and with him a cascade of Black Rain. He barely planted one foot on the floor when the woman already started to close the door, shutting it, bolting and double- locking it, keeping her hand on the lock until the solid thwack of the pursuer's head against the door rocked the firm wood.  
  
Barret leaned against the wall, sweating heavily, his pulse fast, out-of- breath, standing in a lake of Black Rain that poured from his body on the floor..was pretty damn lucky that the lady had a good memory or he might've been mincemeat ...With a tense breath, he walked away from the wall, the liquid leaving a blotchy man-sized print on it. ..He didn't know the woman well but from the ruckus she first made over the mud they tracked all over the house when they first came in he'd say she was particular about those kinda things....but she didn't say nothing this time. She stood, her hand on her cheek with the saddest look in her eyes, dropped with sorrow.....when he saw that she was gazing at this green shit crackling with voltage like a cut wire---  
  
"Mz. Ketch'm, one 'a 'dem got inta yo' house!" Barret shouted in livid alarm. He lumbered to the first thing that he could find and ues as a weapon and held it above his head with his one arm. The woman responded promptly and grabbed it, the wooden chair teetering precariously in his fist, darkening the freak's malformed head as the chair's shadow rocked threateningly over it.  
  
"Don't you DARE hurt my Ash," she warned with her maternal concern--- calm water with ripples of fear disturbing its quietude. It was strangely dutiful, said without emphasis--almost-----nearly--reluctant.  
  
The bearded, burly man gaped at her in disbelief.  
  
"'Dat freak's godda name?!"  
  
"For your information, he's my son," she answered in the same tenor of voice, a somber biterness lacerating her galling words. Her eyes wavered but produced no tears, parched and wasted of any sort of moisture. She gazed with these desert eyes sadly towards it, called its name. It was an unconscious error-- how could she know that her tone was the common kind of voice humans use with their pets. If she knew, would she recoil at herself? Did Ash notice that he wasn't truly her son any longer? However it went, it advanced awkardly, one time reeling backwards because its body was getting pulled two ways. One wanted to go faster but the other was a plodder. Every conflict they had it hurt, his bones cracking and muscles pulling as one lagged behind. There were Pokémon with more than one element. He met them all the time. And they were okay. They were natural. His wasn't meant to be... normal..working like clockwork. He was broken.  
  
The halved creature zigzagged like one inebriated towards his mother, at every step sending electricity through its body as regular as he breathed. She gently and guardedly stretched out her hands to recieve the electric Ivysaur, now clean of Black Rain, the towel wrapped around its legs, and it advanced towards her in lumpish steps. She aimed her head at the floor. "You don't believe me, do you?" she asked, stroking the mottled head, becoming oblivious to the new blood that trickled from the surface.  
  
Both of them could tell. She was saying these things, but they weren't really true. He backed away, tears staining his scales. It only hurt more when the next shock, routine and expected, intensified with the presence of water. The Pokémon tears that hurt instead of healed. Delia made a dutiful move to console the creature convulsing from the worsened shock, light burns etching further deformities on the rumpled hide. A low, raspy perversion of "Pika" scraped the air like pointed bits of gravel."YOU don't believe me, either?"  
  
"Kkkkkkkraghhhhhh," it returned dejectedly, its head sunk down on its forelegs, the sharp scales chipping the floor. His rodent ears twitched ploddingly to the direction of the robust voice of the big man, an undertone of sarcasm raging underneath.  
  
"Yeah. Shore, I believe yuh. 'Dat's how a motha an' son relate," Barret shook his chiselled head, rock-jawed and cynical. So the freak had some parents. He could buy that. That either of 'em believed it? "Don't g'wan an' take me foh a jackass."  
  
"Well, Mr. Wallace-----" Delia started, her head still facing down at the floor that didn't hear what she was saying. Her hand clenched slightly in a removed despair. When her head came up again the desert had its first sprinkle.... but it was an envenomed rainfall. "YOUR child didn't go off on his own for months at a time, worry his mother sick, and when he finally comes home for a visit----" She made a toxic gesture and drove a finger at the misshape, that was so far away from it, but it was the distance that made the invisible wound hurt more than if she went right up to him and kicked him across the room. It was the distance that were sharper than a Scyther's blades---that and the WORDS. "And he doesn't make it home."  
  
What are you SAYING, mom?  
  
I'm right here.....!!  
  
Right under you!!  
  
Here!!  
  
Right.....here.  
  
"You can't BLAME me, Mr. Wallace. You wouldn't KNOW what it's LIKE to ----"  
  
It opened up an old wound and the firey whirlwind stirred up in the big man and he slammed his heavy boot on the floor.  
  
"Lemme tell YUH sumthin', Mz. Ketch'm," Barret burst with explosive tension. He was fearless in the tide of the Shin-Ra, so driven by hate that desire to free the planet and protect his daughter. As the AVALANCHE leader, though it was the rebellion, more egalitarian than Shin-Ra would ever be, Barret liked to think that when he called the shots, they'd listen, and when it didn't happen if some cocky jackass joined them to make a couple thousand gil, it pissed him off real bad. He hated challenge in his own ranks just as much as the next leader. And this was definitely an affront. In a different way, that sharpened the blow tenfold. And he came back with a retort caught on fire:  
  
"Don' talk t'me none 'bout my Mahwlene. When the Plate came down awn Secta 7---" The sinews in his working hand convulsed as he drew it tight into an enraged fist. The memory played itself over in his mind like some horror flick, the support beams tumbling like..avalanches. Half of him sunk away into Midgar and the plate, collapsing and crumbling, onto Biggs.....Wedge...Jessie...his voice lost some of its toughness. "-- yuh had no idea how scared ah was. jes' 'bout gave up everythin'." The pieces of the Plate formed a permanent barrier to Sector 7--Later he found out it wasn't going to be rebuilt. The bodies wouldn't ever get a burial or nothin' like that. They'd just rot with the metal. Marlene wasn't among the victims, but in this journey to stop Sephiroth, there was no way he'd see her anytime soon. The man's voice roughened again "Ah still didn't see uh aftuh Metea fell.. Ah gotta go on someone's goddamn WORD 'dat she's okay. Ah dunno 'dat fa mahself---" He shook his functional arm at the offending woman, the sinews going from convulsing and unsteady to stiff with angry resolution. "--so don' yuh tell me 'dat ah don' know shit!"  
  
"It's so easy for you to say," she replied, the words tumbling off of her tongue like flame. However Barret retorted, the other chose not to listen this time. She signalled sadly to the clown-like Pokémon that waddled out of the kitchen, tired and haggard. "Come on, Mimie. We're going to get Ash to Professor Oak and find how to get him back to normal," she resolved, tilting her head towards the disfigured Pikachu----- Ivysaur...whatever. She couldn't...take this. There HAD to be a way to reverse it---Professor Oak would HAVE to know how---no way around it. She couldn't keep him like this, reluctantly call him her son---for Ash's sake, she wanted him human again.  
  
With her eyes closed she heard Mimie's broom stroke against the floor groggily, with a drowsy grin that was more reflective of its facial structure than its current mood. "Why don't you fix some rice balls?" she coazed, her hands wringing imperceptively in her lap. The Mr. Mime could tell from the tone that this wasn't a suggestion or an implication, and it hurried back into the kitchen, dropping the broom with a clumsy clatter of wood on wood. She turned back to Barret, the already-thin crust barring his exposive anger disintegrating as resentment welled up in his emotions. But before he could say a word, Mrs. Ketchum beat him to it. The voice was worn-out "That's terrible about Marlene...but she isn't a Pokémon.There's no confusion--we can't talk to each other any more---I don't know what he's saying---I don't know if he KNOWS what I'm saying...."  
  
"Kraaaghhh..." The Pikachu's ears flattened on Ivysaur's muddled head, that crackled with paining ribbons of electricity. It stood up on its back legs, pounding on his mother's leg in a vain effort to make himself be understood---a word of acknowledgement was all he wanted, and that spoke itself in mangled growls. "Kragh! Prreghheee!"  
  
"Yo' goddamn SCARED 'a yuh own KID," Barret accused without yield, steady and hard-voiced.  
  
Her answer was equally biting. "I didn't try to throw a chair at him." Her grief-leadened steps sounded on the wood as she wove around the banister, and disappeared up the stairs, her son calling out unintelligibly after her. Barret bit his lip. He looked down at the creature, its crackling tail twiching irregularly, its jagged scales scraping the floor as it tipped on its side.  
  
The AVALANCHE leader watched it squirm, volts of electricity shortening its hapless cries. If he didn't know that it was someone's kid he would've killed it by now. He'd fought so many back home the reaction was instantaneous.  
  
Ain't no diff'rent from da monstas on da Planet, he figured. Somewhere in the house a mechanical warble signalled the change of hours. The flump of a backpack on the floor and a plop of wrapped rice balls. The wind prolonged its brutal reign outside. The glass panes rattled in submission.  
  
Barret pondered this awhile, creasing the hide on his forehead in hypothetical thought. Mebbe'f Mahwlene wuz one 'a 'dem ah wouldn' know it wuz.....His beady eyes stopped on the high-voltage lump. He wandered away from Marlene and looked for the other female. He'd been searching a long time now--she split after the storm. His ears rolled outside. The windows weren't soundproof. The monsters were still wailing and howling, prob'ly like this one-----a kid turned into a freak. That must've meant that...  
  
The thunder muttered outside and Barret jammed the pieces together. With an under-breath "shit" he was out the door, back into the grasp of the howling wind and the roaring rain. His bane and the creatures' haven. With no gun. He stomped off the porch and felt breathing on his back."Awright, punk. Gimme yo' best shot," Barret coaxed, turning and ramming into the aggressor head-on. It smacked into the side of the house, entering half-view in the light rays pouring out from the house. "Zemene," he marked it, ducking the closed fist that hurled at his head lightning-quick. Barret might've been strong for a human, but what he had in strength he lost in speed. The other's fist sprang out from nowhere and clocked him straight in the jawbone. The impact stretched his neck in the wrong way and put him more on the alert, and he barely dodged the rush, its cord-like tail whisking against the drowning bulk of his pant leg. The monster landed another hit, this time rubber instead of metal. That was a direct kick, and the man went reeling into the house's wall. The two hits it landed---somethin' wasn't right 'bout either of 'em. That punch was harder than if it'd been bare. It had bits of metal covering 'em, like it was wearing armor that melted during the storm-----what kinda monster needs to wear armor unless-----  
  
Ah seen a lotta punks 'dat wear brass knuckles and dat otha shit but 'dey don' wear a whole metal GLOVE on 'dere hands.  
  
The big man tore himself from the wall, narrowly avoiding a right hook as a solid thwack sounded right next to him. The bits of metal stuck in the wall, and he tackled it, denying that it could be Tifa. He mowed it into the mud with one pound of his good fist, crushing the creature's chest. But the rain still fell. The bones reformed beneath the liquid, and it retaliated swiftly, graspring the burly man around his chest and waist, securing him in such a way that it was impossible to struggle, and was about to drive him into the ground when the light caught his form. Its unshakable grip loosened, and it inexplicably let Barret slide out of its hands, and eased the big man onto the wall. He didn't wonder why it didn't Meteodrive him-he got up and barrelled towards the creature, until he looked at the freak in the light and saw what he didn't want to see. Eyes are cruel enough to open when you least wanna see something, and he saw that the monster with the angry-earth eyes that had the shreds of the busted umbrella in its teeth wore what used to be a white tanktop, brown shorts, and oversized workboots apart at the seams, not 'cause of wear but 'cause of claws that didn't fit in the shoe. Its arms hung loosely swaying from badly-placed shoulders that was on either side squeezing it like a vice. "L-dawg?" Barret blanched, taking a step back on the porch. He wanted to hear "Who'd you think it was?" or "Of course"--maybe a "yeah"---but this was all he heard.  
  
"Gssssssa....."  
  
Jes' a Zemene in her clothes, Barret accepted with a gruff sigh---until he saw it gesticulate-- wave its claws in distress. The way it gestured, like it was-almost talking. That didn't mean anything. It coulda been anyone---anyone---not just Tifa.  
  
"C'mawn--talk t' me, girl!!" Barret commanded, wielding all his human authority That sibilant noise and more crude signs----The more signs it made, the less Barret understood it, the more he panicked, the more he grabbed the creature by one arm slimy from the rain and shook it to its nerves if it had any. His tone grew wildly frantic. "Tifa, it's dat yuh in 'dere, say somethin'!! Lemme know it ain't some nobody!"  
  
The Zemene grew frantic. It lurched for Barret, landing its hands on his shoulder muscles, its mouth contorting in bizarre formations that coiled and stretched into the farthest thing from words, a uniform, homosyllabic sound of "gsssssssaa". "Lemme know.." Barret grunted as it tore out of his human grip, holding its hands in front of it, pointing, jabbing a random digit into its gene-emaciated chest. And all the while Barret begged for a word. And this miscreation couldn't give it to him.  
  
This impossible exchange had a witness. A beam of yellow filtered out of the widening crack between the door and doorway. A brown eye roved, reflexively blinking to avoid the wind and liquid storm. The other abnormalities half-circled Barret and and their kind, the greater part of them drawn toward that light, whether welcoming or hostile, it acted as a magnet, exacting an inescapable pull on them.The leader made as far as the doorstep when a shrivelled vine wound through the crack and lashed it, the remnants of voltage crawling through its now-incapacitated form. A vengeful gale washed the bold one further out to sea, sparking from the residual shock. The door widened, the mime exiting first, immediately waving its hands in a fixed pattern, concentrating its brainpower to shape a mental Barrier against the advancing horde. The wind hurled them into the earth ocean. While the psychic barricades and electric vines swarmed around her, she caught wind of the raised voices of her house guest.  
  
"It's not so easy, is it?" The solitary question failed to tame the storm---it devoured all. Barret's sweating head turned and saw the woman and the the two freaks. The crossbreed's eyes glowed sinsterly from in front of the woman who looked downwards, holding onto the malevolent wind as she inevitably fought for balance. "Don't listen with your ears," she murmured over the wind and lost. "You won't hear anything."  
  
Before Barret could fight with the clamor and say he didn't hear what the hell she said, the three of them flowed with the brutal tide that would eventually throw them where there was no foliage to stay the merciless winds, or landmark to know where you were headed: to the endless ocean of mud.  
  
The horde roved onwards, around the house, in search of an opened door, in search for food, for human comprehension, for their stolen voices. Barret stayed rooted to the turbulent surfacc and blinked his eyes, keeping them shut so for a moment he could see less than nothing.  
  
"Rain fallin' too hawd t' hear anythin'. For a moment the man wondered...how long had he been here, searching for Tifa, telling N-dawg to go on ahead and he'd catch up later. Then he didn't wonder HOW later..depending on where Cid went, they could be anywhere on that ocean island.  
  
Can't sit my ass here no longer, he decided, staring towards the opaque horizon that wasn't any different from the ground, which wasn't any different from the sea. He trudged through every part of the earth at once.  
  
N-dawg and Valentine mus' be lawng gawn, he concluded with a heavy exhale. The mud sucked and clung to his boots as he headed out, not stopping to turn around to talk to the beast head-on.  
  
"Lissuhn, don' know if yo' L-dawg or yuh ain't, but I ain't stickin' round here no mo'." He didn't stop to hear if the creature followed him or not, whether to devour him like it did to Tifa or if it WAS Tifa. Right now it didn't matter. Nanaki and Vincent were way ahead of them and the rain was only falling harder, turning more land to sea, turning more sky to earth blending all in an uninteeligible unity.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Massive clawprints carved guilt and fear into the grime. No....forget fear. Fear is distant, vague, but not impending. Not imminent. It hovers far away. It's not invasive. The line between dread and terror is near invisible, but there's a difference between relatively close in proximity and breathing down your neck, a quickened pulse and frying nerves, creeping slowly through hostile territory or running for your life.  
  
Zero-X was doing the latter. He couldn't see the bat-fox and frog, nor could he smell their odor in his reptillian nostrils, nor could he hear them through the chaos that broke like waves against his hide, piling layers upon layers of earth on his backside, making him slower still, forcing his girth against the grith of the restless land. Massive sheets hammered him without mercy in this way. He could sense they were close. Not by physical senses, all but derailed with the perpetual storm, but by pure instinct. The hunters gained ground.  
  
And WHY was he running from those who----not a month past, would risk their freedom and lives to further the organization--and a single, solitary error in his judgement----a failure to cover his tracks and ensure that there would be no internal retribution.....it had cost him dearly. The code of dishonor that so long stood as the foundation for that organization, revered by its members and reviled by the police, crumbled beneath him-----it was permissable to enact it against insipid trainers--but within the organization, there were limits to the amount and nature of lying that could be done: to lie about something of this magnitude to powerful, sagacious agents that somewhere along the way inexplicably gave birth to a conscience, however minute: it was not the most intelligent decision he had made, that was for certain.  
  
The hulking landing-point for the mobile earth gave a vexed growl. The tattered stone of authority was in the process of collapsing.  
  
In the process? What is it that you're thinking, you fool?! he self- berated with a low hiss. That action of opening his mouth was no less foolish: it allowed the muck to plaster his lizard tongue to the roof of his jaws. And that wasn't the only thing that was sticking. The titanic accumulations of earth acted as a sort of paste..he found it increasingly difficult to fight onwards. For a quicker being it would be easier, but the weather was as much of a trap as a PokéBall.  
  
. Smaller...quicker...weaker. His mutinous ex-agents would find him, but they were no match for him in terms of sheer power. What had he to fear? They were but stinging flies. No...flies do not sting. They---they.....iHe could not think of an appropriate verb at the moment, but it meant little. The point was that he was a behemoth-----what thinking ability had been stripped from him he was granted horrifying strength in exchange. And if this would guard him against the traitors, then....why on earth was he fleeing?  
  
Ridiculous...absurd...  
  
To run from what were merely stinging flies.  
  
He swung his massive bulk with laborious effort sideways, the vicious wind shattering on his mud-plastered hide, weighed down with the load that grew ever larger as he faced his attackers, a flicker of haughty expectation of invincibility.  
  
This complete halt to his flight catalyzed their proximity, and the 'stinging flies' overtook him with menacing anticipation. How convenient for them to sting right into the red brand. Giovanni roared in agony as a distressingly accurate burst of black flame and boiling acid burned through the patch of thickened mud, that happened to be shielding the still-sensitive area of the uper arm. The hot acid scalded the already-etched part of hide that contorted in writhing folds, renewing the anguish of the first branding that had just started to stop irritating the limb. The leathery mass of scales smoked and burned, transforming the monstrous roar into a high whimper.  
  
Ditching your agents so soon? Cassidy emphasized with a coat of venom. She glided above the mud-smeared arc, hovering over his arched back, and clenched her fangs in bold mutiny. Butch climbed on his snout and ripped the mud over the glowering pits of hell. The muzzle writhed the same as the arm, choppy roars unable to drive his former underling from pinpointing the state of his conscience and probing his soul.  
  
Get off, he snarled threateningly, a wind-rattling roar hurling Butch from his muzzle. The frog recovered on the ground and scaled the lizard's body, latching onto the base of the broken horn. No amount of head-thrashing would loose this unwanted cargo. I have nothing to conceal.  
  
You wouldn't be runnin' away unless you 've got somethin' to hide, Butch retorted with an accusatory croak. His overgrown fangs dipped into his vision. They appeared painful from this up close, but the rebellious tone of the goading shrivelled the speck of what used to be unbreakable pride. C'mon, fess up.  
  
Don't think we're stupid, ZERO-X...Cassidy tore the psychological wound through, entombing his ego. The beast succumbed under power of suggestion, deprived of ambition and lust of power, too bound up with fetters of panic and guilt of this predetermined action, so trivial at the time, to accomodate much else. How much more now that Cassidy and Butch had unearthed this fiend in his mind, this diabolical act that he had paid for with his reputation, his imperious dignity......And now, his former agents had the GALL and AUDACITY to strip him of his NAME?!?!  
  
"GROARRRRRRRGHHHHHHH!!!" You will NOT address me in that manner!!!! he protested, roaring with the force of his lost dignity, nearly blowing out Butch's eardrums. Man's deliberate mistake advanced with cumbrous tread, dashing the back of its head against its back. Movement of air seeped into his ear as the bat-fox located the left forearm with a shrill screech. The echolocation was accurate. She found the brands and spat fire into the opened hide until the thrashing stopped. It was then that the beast plunged on his chest, yearning for the constricting mud to soothe it. Ameliorating the physical pain left a wide opening for Cassidy to scourge his mind.  
  
You don't_deserve to be called anything else, Cassidy spat with vehemence more acidic than the frog's. More of her fangs gleamed, assuming a smarmy and condescending air.# 43 of Team Rocket code: 'Silencing demoted agents: Get rid of them quickly. Torture is for non-agents. Break code on pain of demotion, permanent removal, or death', in your own words. And just in case you plead your case---she added, alighting on the monster's back, setting her clawed limbs atop his back. ---We know you knew, Zero-X. But since I'm so forgiving...She raised her wings with the purpose of blatant intimidation and growled, . Get the hell out of here. We'll go another way.If we ever meet up----The ebony blaze stirred in her opened jaws, which seared directly into the aged and fresh burns. But it wasn't a quick burst, it was one drawn-out chain of fire, burning into the mark in rapid succession. Butch clambered against the wind and reached the quaking limb, spilling acid onto the crackling flame. It ripped a third brand into the first and second, gouging so far into the hide, tissue, and bone below it that the mark ensured its permanence.The fire was aimed without eyes, but it was accurate enough, inflicting renewed agony in the red lettering. The ever-emptying skies healed the smoke-clouded imprint, the smoke dissipating but the scar remaining, obscured by the earth as the disgraced reptile sank into the grime.  
  
Consider that a reminder, the frog croaked as he and the winged animal blurred into the obscurity of the storm, leaving the mortified reptile, head in the slime, swallowing mud, his abused forearm bearing a hate-embroiled symbol he couldn't read, but he didn't have to know that it was a letter to know how much it desecrated the inert corpse of his pride.  
  
*~*~*  
  
They finally could greet the dawn as a haggard fragment of the city. As for the remainder---they had no say in the matter. Somewhere a limping Wartortle spent the last of his reserves on the now- simpering flames. It finished its dreary task and reported with a few curt syllables that the threat was over. The other of its kind signalled with another bellow--it saw the petering threads of smoke that incriminated the scorching element. But even the ones with the hottest flame were spared accusation, because all had heard--if not SEEN with their own eyes---the bloodsucker and the fire lizard--which was no distant relative of Charizard. And as for the bloodsucker, the Ground types interrogated weakened Nidoran, dying Golbat and dead Arbok.  
  
While the remaining Growlithe interrogated, the four or so Onix drove out. They targeted the strange-looking or sounding ones-----the speaking Magikarp and murmuring Poliwhirl with humanoid shape and a fur-covered human with fire spouting from its back and a girl with Umbreon's red-black eyes. Then there were the disfigured creatures that didn't resemble a Pokémon in the least, some with scraps of clothing clinging rumpled around them, or some that had shed the mark of humanity altogether. But no matter their true origin, the city didn't welcome them, and the Onix made sure of it. If their towering presence wasn't enough to stop their furtive advance, being wrapped up with a stone tail and thrown to the outskirts was sufficient to keep them on the outskirts.  
  
They didn't feel the same dawn as the others. There were few that dared to bend towards the emergent sun: most shirked from it. The forms made indistincy by the morning haze and by the sheer number of monstrosities lay and squatted on the deformed protrusions formed not by creation but destruction, which molds its own sculptures out of crumbled remnants, clogged in Black Rain that no longer fell, that ended a stagnant sea that engulfed the ruins. Above, the sky dared to show its true face after the cumulonimbus had banished it, and a steel-grey morning, stealing into existence furtively after its exile.  
  
A twinge of crimson pricked through the air and disrupted the deathly calm, starting out as a faint point of light that brightened with the energy that repels instead of attracts. The creeping mutants retreated underneath the ebony bed, the apprehensive growled and barked, on the defense, and the stone-skinned snakes continued to slither their rumbling paths that streaked their rocky imprints through a sea of black that absorbed this crimson pigment, staining the air surrounding it the hue of the first beast's sustenance. The alert canines gazed on it with guarded apprehension---a brief whine whisked through the surrounding air, calm with the storm's departure, turbulent with the punctured sky. They weren't wrong to fear--the red light grew more intense to their sight, until it vanished altogether and took the shape of the diabolical exterminator.  
  
Gravity would have dropped him on the city's remnants if a bristling shape didn't knock him from his feet. The black-and-orange form planted its paws on his chest, and he wao too shaken with the groaning mental image of scorched ruins and mauled bodies to protest the unprovoked attack. The hideous compound of repulsion's jaw fell, revealing the forked, serpentine tongue, vibrating uncontrollably.  
  
Misty.....SUZY....Don't tell me I'm too LATE...His demonic head automatically lifted from one of the hard metal scraps, drained haze burning away to reveal an icy terror that coated his black veins. Where were they? WHERE WERE...they.....?  
  
The unrestrained half of his body snapped up and grabbed the dog by its shoulderblades with his scarified hands. The canine lost all boldness and backed away, growling defensively, unwilling to show fear on merit of his breed, he showed hostile caution..  
  
"Deevvrrruughhh......" Stay away...Neck-biter----  
  
He knew what that name implied. So they knew. Word spreads fast on the grapevine, doesn't it? Brock snorted with trails of acreb entwining his thoughts, raising himself to a mockery of human posture. The pack backed away, not unified, some whining and others frothing, one disorganized mass of fur, flesh, and bone. Behind them the stone serpents roamed purposefully, seeking the outsiders.  
  
Unaware that he was an intuder to begin with, the half-standing form lowered half his guard, crossing his scale-covered arms in adamancy---until the giant fgure of Onix slithered away, removing the barrier that interposed itself between his light-hating eyes and the cruel star.  
  
I only take it when---I need it, Brock replied a deal more less convincingly, shrinking away from the light, covering his scrunched-up eyes with the backs of his rough hands that were insufficient to block out the faintest pricks of yellow and white that hurled him backwards, forcing him front-first on the standing liquid, his triangular tail twisting limp. The tail of their evolution.....but the atrocity he commited overruled marks of breed. They weren't as loyal to their pack as the Growlithe or Arcanine.They demanded compensation. And their source for that crawled away on his knees, scraping his head against the uneven shards that carved shallow ruts through his scales. He hissed, bubbles bursting next to his head but no sound that they could understand. I'm not going to hurt you----just please---TELL ME-----where they are.....  
  
Oh, look----the blood-drinker wipes out our territory and now wants mercy. One of the incautious Houndour leered at the face-down monstrosity, clamping a paw on his tail which twitched with spasm. Grovel lower, you punk, he barked sardonically, his muzzle raised at a brazen height.  
  
Try and save it and take the blame. It really hurt..that he tried, he got Misty's sisters to safety and came back in the faint hope that the city was still standing.  
  
It hurt more that the same bastard who woke up the goddamned instincts was the same one that the Houndour should've wrought their justice on.  
  
"WRghhhii craaaghht yroughh---" he gurgled through the vapid liquid, grabbing his vocal chords with a half-submerged limb in a vain effort to be coherent. "----- HRUGHHGRUGHSSHRAAGH mreegh...?...!!"  
  
The garbled roar was meaningless. Why don't you do us a favor--- suggested one of the Houndour, shaking the clinging liquid off his coat, the sprayed drops flecking Brock's same-pigmented hide with someone else's burden. ------and get out. It's bad enough to know that your kind is lurking in the dark waiting to take over. But that's where we least see you. If you've GOT to exist, don't let us know you're there or we'll-- Heat built as the fire wrapped wormlike in their scowling jaws. ---take you down like a sick Stantler, get my drift?  
  
Brock nodded dumbly, too fraught with disillusionment to protest his innocence further. His own element, his own type..... and not just once-humans, but POKéMON that were BORN Pokémon....now even THEY saw him as an outsider. And there was no way he'd make them see otherwise, because of that sickening realization that the Fire/Dark dogs didn't understand a word of his thought-speech--they were unaltered, normal--and they were Fire/Dark, not Psychic.....and that minute difference buried any comprehension.  
  
He didn't hesitate in flight. The rains over Cerulean had ended. Any burn, scratch, or scrape wouldn't heal so quickly this time----. He fled in a stagger, half-crawling, half- running, his muscles weakened by his exhaustive 'ability'. He escaped drunkenly from the debilitating light and from his own unmitigated shock, the pack howling and baying.  
  
Before the distant outside the Houndour stopped pursuit, and turned tail with haughty triumph, the tremendous Onix enforcing the demarcation line. Brock would've liked to think that one of the Onix was his, but even if it was......It wouldn't recognize me now..not like this, he growled ruefully, his hands still acting as an ineffective barrier against the crushing light.  
  
But....screw vision. He didn't need his eyes with his nose and ears. He could smell the scorched buildings behind him and hear the altered survivors that maundered amongst the rubble. He raised his head skyward. Slate grey...a hazy morning. The sun was barely up but he felt the sharp burn on his body, grimy with the Black Rain that the ruins practically swam in. While pain shot through him as the sun flared across his bowed frame, he listened as best he could with the black goo blocking his ears. Dead silent except for his own breathing, loud in his ears, louder in his mind with the ice-fringed silence, their names reverberating over and over and OVER.....  
  
He felt driven..he HAD_to keep looking in this limited space that fear of hot retaliation confined him to, even if he was searching for ashes, for the REMAINS-----. He clambered prone across the chemical sea, weak from the light and weak from the psychic exhaustion. He searched like the drowning fights for air, smearing the liquid in haphazard patterns, the ebony substance grabbing and hanging onto his wrists while the clatter of his claws sounded against the broken and mauled plaster, more often on the smoldered husks of buildings and Pokémon---some decrepit humans, but neither Misty nor Suzy.  
  
He planted a leg in the mud. No patter or roar of the droplets, only the bestial jeer of the unaltered Pokémon, the muted moans of the mutants, the splorch of undried earth as it caked up to his thigh with so thick an adhesive, and his own tears tearing at his lungs.  
  
He wasn't moving fast enough. Too slow no matter how fast he ran. Always too late.  
  
His malformed knuckles tremored with squelching defeat--they sank into the ground's stained surface, leaving a hideous print of his fingers in the ground. The mark of a wretch, a joke of the humans, made more vile with this failure---in rage he punched the sticky substance---.It was already sunk in more than the rest, like someone had already...been...there. He bowed on his knees and felt the impression with the flat side of the scaled hand.  
  
They're webbed.....Brock growled with presensation of that lingering illusion of hope. The unshakable burden on his heart was just starting to haltingly disintegrate when he edged up with one knee and raised one of his clawed hands, feeling for another set-----the shape of the track screamed human. One eye opened, the protruding hide around it writhing in hurt. He swallowed the pain and bent his head, gazing at the print---from a shoe or a boot. There wasn't any more doubt it was a human--but.....  
  
An armed one-----it could be one of those uniformed ones with the guns--- Misty's in trouble, he growled in distress. The scarlet slits vanished and he felt for each print, as swift as his swallowed strength let him, smelling with nose and tongue, feeling with his limbs. He grew conscious of the waxing heat as the sun fired its rays at the earth, and he fought the light, searching for a tree's shade as well as the tracks---that soon..got blurred, ran into each other, like the creature that made them was faltering. It got to a point where the human and webbed tracks vanished, replaced by the four-legged gallop of a hooved creature---maybe a--Rapidash? Brock quickened his pace, running on the tracks, his own further deforming the prints previously etched, a single name spelling itself out in his head that hurt with the pang of uncertain relief.  
  
Somewhere along the trail he halted, an expectant breath catching in his lungs and choking him with caustic sorrow. Those weren't Suzy's--they couldn't be. Her hooves were clawed. They weren't normal like these hooves. Maybe a Ponyta or a Rapidash---with white fur instead of black. Something that actually BELONGED on this earth...but not his sister.  
  
No point, Brock gave a margled sigh, treading far more slowly, this observation crushing his mangled spirit further. He gazed into the blinding fire, his voice broken and unwilling to mend itself.  
  
His mind told him to turn back, his gut told him to move on.  
  
The tracks forked. The Pokémon hoofprints led to shade, and another set---It was zigzag, the clawed hooves went every way but straight. Suzy...he reached out a hand and foot to follow the other tracks, his black heart lifting in ineffable relief--- until he heard--a voice..human, because he could hear words. He put a hand shaking with a horror-shattered joy to his ear and advanced cautiously. As he found out with the Houndour, the gulf between Pokémon and mutant Pokémon was wider than he thought. It made the humans seem that much more superior. That much more...hateful.  
  
The tracks took him around the sea of ruin and terminated at a stubborn clump of half-broken trees that refused to shatter at the recent stampede of wind, the testimony of their brutal struggle apparent in their bent and cracked forms. The one covered in scales rather than rotten bark crouched behind the rain-heavy foliage, bent halfway. He parted the branches with his hands, the twigs and leaves pouring a black cascade that blocked his view until the drainage stopped. As he tore each layer, the human voice grew more distinct, raising the fear-gripped snarl in the demon's voice. He forced his head between the last bars of branches and what should he see but a... human... not just ANY human--a mad roar broke through the cage of trees, drowned in vengeance. The white and grey uniform emblazoned with the telltale R was enough to justify an unexplained and swift carnage.  
  
On impulse, he lunged through the net of branches, a crunch clearly audible as the split pieces of wood flew in haphazard directions and the creature of onyx scales toppling the Rocket and pinning him roughly to the earth, one hand raised to gouge out his throat. The squirming Rocket clutched a vial in his trembling hand, gloved in dark grey instead of the conventional white. Brock didn't get to see what the rest of his hateful victim looked like: a megaton crashed into the demonic shape and slammed him hard on the ground with a thrust of its bovine head. The base of his shoulder connected with jarring impact. He could feel the bruise swelling already, while the feral bull snorted through one dilating nostril, wearing the earth with its massive hoof. It charged with its head down, this time to pierce instead of smash, its eyes broadening as the demon gripped its horns and hefted it with ruthless force into the branches, twigs snapping as it crashed with a moan.  
  
"What's the big idea?!" railed the Rocket, unhooking the spherical device from his belt. The demon recoiled at the mere sight of the globular prison, but it didn't fall on him, instead it ennared the knocked-out Tauros, lacerated with bloody scrapes and covered in broken twigs. "It got hurt really bad--and now I've got to fix up Tauros, too." Brock was unmoved, aware that the Rocket held the battered form of Misty with hands just as venom-stained as his. He sprang onto the human and raised the death-dealing claws again, casting a shadow over his eyes that were too childish to be a true Rocket. "I-is this y-your friend?," he stammered the question, the uncorked bottle loosing a drop of the tincture on the hide laden with a patchwork of burns and wounds.  
  
Brock gave a stern nod, hostility brimming from each choked-off exhale. Mondo forced the glob of terror down his esophagus and said, a bit more clearly, "It's in r- really bad shape. I can help it i-if you don't kill me."  
  
Since he was still alive it must've meant that the monster somehow understood him... Better make the most of the opportunity, he decided rather quickly. Mondo reached in his bag with nerves in a jumble, his hand slipping each time he found seemingly what he prodded the bag for. He pulled out a cloth, set it in front of him, and hastily poured the contents onto it. The tincture saturated the towel rather quickly, and with this dripping rag in his hand, he set to work, rubbing the mixture into the gorges, valleys, mountains--a volcano or two--and the rest of the grim topography that now mapped Misty's hide. He rubbed hard, causing an agonized groan to escape from the ever-open jaws. Brock opened his fist, ready to end the Rocket's existence, but---gradually, the open wounds sealed and partways and scarred. The Rocket rummaged through his bag again with a spray-bottle of a medicine familiar to Brock in the Rocket's mouth, and a roll of bandages in both hands. Burying his pride he allowed the Rocket---that social deformity---to bandage the half-open wounds, soothe the burn with the spray, do anything necessary to preserving her life---and he chained his burning resentment. He'd have to trust him, no matter if he was a human and a Rocket, two brands of deceit. Human without Rocket he only feared as strangers and superiors solely able to inflict pain, and Rocket without human--it's not something they could help..it wasn't their fault. But human_AND Rocket.....  
  
Mondo knew what the monster sensed in him. Maybe even knew---Pokémon were just as sentient as they were: Meowth was living proof of that. But just because they were sentient didn't mean they were all benevolent. Like this one---he really wanted to help his Tauros first, but he sided with self-preservation as much as the next human, and tended to this one for the sake of his neck. And Brock knew this. He wasn't doing this because he was WORRIED...Rockets didn't live for anyone else but themselves. Everything they did, if it even ever got CLOSE to LOOKING like a good intention, it was for their own miserable skins. But if it was going to save Misty.....let the rat get away with his weasly trick to keep his life. Let him have it. He didn't want his dirty blood.  
  
The deathly silence spread to the commiserable band of foliage, broken with the taut breaths of the demon and the human. By laggard degrees, what was fragile respiration earlier, regulated, and the parody of Gyarados sent a robust roar---cut off by her wounds, she ran her hand as gingerly as her build permitted her across her side, the scales recoiling at the abrasive touch.  
  
And then...it all came back to her. The sorry excuse for a fight, burning in a Hydro Pump from her OWN Staryu, Cerulean scorching as some other monster whisked her away and dumped her outside the city, where she couldn't do a thing, where the flames were packed too close together for her to re-enter, and by then she'd blacked out. Stupid..couldn't DO anything. said you would and DIDN'T...  
  
More of the dank branches snapped and hung lifeless as the Gyarados crunched through the foliage, tearing through already-dead stumps with a disoriented slashes, missing its mark but the combined abuses severing the trunk and landing in the wet mud that the sun hadn't yet baked, her weight plunging her underneath and retarding the little speed she posessed. Behind her,. she heard a whole tree snapped under the impact as Brock roared after her, growling in frantic tones and re-entering the sun's realm, haggard and bent, the roar twisted into a throttled snarl.  
  
Wait------Misty----!! She answered him with a reproach that didn't need words to convey what it meant. The demon sped for her with redoubled fervor, sweat dribbling from his scales, yearning to avert humiliation, shame--his emotional plagues. They won't know who you are---!! His warning fell ears that the Black Rain and denial clogged. Do you hear me? Misty!! Brock ran faster on the muck's treacherous surface, the lashlike tail winding from the flank at the wind's mercy instead of under his own power, too absorbed in his dread of the grey beast's mortification. But it looked like he couldn't stop her. She still knows who she is......Brock thought mordantly, his intense red gaze locked on the inexorable Gyarados.  
  
The drooping beast stood crushed at Cerulean's edge, barely concious of the bestial fleers as she staggered amidst the wreck of her home, unaware that the Wartortle fled in her wake, that the Houndour's jeering howls were directed against her, and that the tremendous rock snake barred her from advancing further.  
  
"Errrrrouughhhhh......" the boulder serpent's jaws unhinged, releasing a gravelly roar. It raised cobra-like to its twenty-odd feet, carving out a shadow that stretched beyond the city's border. "Errrrghhh..." Leave.  
  
Misty only dimly heard the Onix's roar, and even then it HAD to be distress at the destroyed city, the population, gone, but it soon became apparent. The Onix hefted its grantic segments as a blockade in front of her, its enormous head rising above its body, a horned shadow agianst the sun.  
  
She knew it didn't want her to get past. The reason why.....it was lost to her. What she knew..a Pokémon barred the way to her home. And if she was going to stand for that, after unsuccessfully facing off against the hell lizard, then she'd be a coward. An oversized snake-----the oversized part was her bane--massive she didn't fear, nor did she fear the Onix that once belonged to Brock---so why should she cower at this one, that blocked HER way in HER hometown?  
  
Onix were loud creatures on the basis of their stone-encased hide, and the target could dodge it because of its retarded speed. The crumble and crunch of the metal beneath its tail alerted Misty, and she avoided the incoming Bind, hearing rock scrape against rock as the coiled segments connected with a reverberating crash. Misty seethed with indignance and rage, hot energy fountaining in the wide jaws. The throbbing orb stretched into a beam that broke against the Onix's hide. The gouge ran so deep that it broke the rock-hard skin, drawing a sliver of blood from its stony layers. It retreated with a fearful groan, grinding its segmented body across the liquid-wrapped metal. As it moved from her view, she waded into the sea, fearstruck, her webbed claws clenched in front of her chest.  
  
Empty. Gone. No more. The fire had come and escaped, taking the humans with it in an inescapable tide. Not of water but of a blaze that left what remained of the city scorched floating in this sea reaching to the knees. But not the sea she adored, the sea she grew up with.  
  
In her mind she saw shadows of the townspeople and their Pokémon....in a grief-induced delirium she thought she saw them in front of her.....smiling and waving as the sea devoured them with greedy appetite---but they were only the three Onix incensed by the deformiy's very presence.  
  
What letter of 'LEAVE' is beyond your understanding?! A giant tail bashed the rubble beside her, sending a confused mass of shredded concrete towering above her head. One Onix she could fight, but the numbers weighed against her. In panic she fled on her four limbs, to the lonesome border where Brock gazed to the grey horizon despondently, appearing with the terrible red slits closed to the distant eye a shadow, an intangible tracing of a palbable being. But shadows couddn't feel any sort of pain, and he was plagued with it...because he could sense Misty's dejection. The Black Rain rolled out her ears, rolling down the atrocious visage. The echo of his warnings threaded clear in her ears, and she realized the futility of ever setting foot in her hometown again Her eyes on the immersed rubble, she and the fiend headed in a direction that would circumvent the no-longer familiar terrain.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The usually amicable innkeeper examined the small coins his outlandishly long-haired guest shoved on the table, an impetuous "what are you waiting for?" glower on her face, flushed with, not her own blood amassing in her head, but the daily Canyon twilight that cast all it fell on into a vermillion light. The innkeeper stood there with a vacant crease for a mouth, holding the metal pieces up to the firelight, probably astonished at the holes in the coins. To the customer, this wasn't a welcome countenance, and she didn't hesitate to express her volcanic displeasure.  
  
"My money isn't good enough for you?! It better be top-of-the-line service, mister, or I'm not paying a thing!!!" the woman growled threateningly after the manner of irate beasts. The blob with the scrunched-up grimace affirmed with a grating cry as she threw one more of those drilled-through coins across the old wooden counter. They landed and twirled with a clink and got a long, puzzled stare. Just because there was a HOLE in them didn't mean they were worth any less, but----as if he KNEW the gil equivalent...  
  
His thinking was soon disrupted. "Wahhh---buhfet!!" the light blue thing rejoined presumably the woman, tensing the innkeeper's nerves. He'd met dissatisfied customers before, and who usually travelled in companies. Solo travellers usually had guard dogs. He figured he shouldn't argue with this amazon, or else meet the wrath of her and her angry-looking creature.  
  
"Just remember, lady---they'd never do this over in Midgar---" He warned under his breath, placing a plate of the Canyon special and setting a glass of some undefinable beverage in front of her. Jessie attacked the steaming roast and shoved the food in her mouth hoggishly, getting disgusted sideglances from the innkeeper. If he knew she escaped from the Shin-Ra mansion, maybe he would've understood her irascibility. She and Wobbufet ate ravenously, complimenting the chef through a crammed mouth. The innkeeper only shrugged the accolades off and went to help the next customer, flipping a bit of gil with his thumb. The noiseful eaters next to him fell oblivious to everything else, including the weathered, muscular man whose granite jaw hung with curious uncertainty.  
  
"What can I get you?" he asked, wiping his head with a dishrag, trying his best to extend the Canyon hospitality to anyone that took the trouble to make the long journey way out here.  
  
"I want a Sahagin foot---your old lore says it keeps devils away---" mumbled the customer, a little nervous and---a heavily-armed man, probably a Corelian or a Midgarian, definitely not a local. Probably Corelian from his sunburns, about the only weather condition above Midgar was acid rain. But-----wait a MINUTE.... The innkeeper gave his customer an insulted look, and cut him off.  
  
"It's not lore. Sahagin feet secretes a chemical that deters others from attacking it. It was their first form of defense, before they learned how to use partisans," he explained, a bit indignant. The muscled man blinked, leaned his head over his sweating, meaty elbows, and said,  
  
"Whatever---hear this---" He grabbed the innkeeper by the animal skin sleeve and looked behind him both ways, afraid that the walls had ears. "There's devils that're out there.--- quit laughin' at me, man---I SAW 'em--one were these two BIG GAS BALLS spittin' acid and a man- eating plant and---"  
  
The Cosmo native drew away from the heavy grip, dumping his dishrag out of his pocket and bending towards a rack of mugs. He looked over his aproned shoulder, incredulous and unbelieving.  
  
"You're from Corel? The Elders have already sent a few of our youth there so you can teach them what we can't: to fight...." He replaced the mugs with a clatter, adding to the din of the sonorous eaters---"---and you're afraid of a Ho-Chu---" he twisted his head disbelievingly at the huge man, scarred from battle and blazing with a plethora of tattoos. It was laughable. The Corelian people were known to "kill first", and since there was this perceived difference between monster and human, the feral fruits of the Planet ususally went quicker.  
  
"It wasn't a Ho-Chu. It was fast as hell. It spat ACID and tried t' choke me to death! You try fighting it---!" he raved thunderously, pounding a thick fist on the old-fashioned counter. The innkeeper stuffed his rag in the apron again, set the Sahagin foot on the counter. Gil exchanged hands and he blundered off the stool and out the door with his machine gun and ammunition belt and superstitions. The innkeeper sighed, shook his head in a removed fashion, and turned to his other customer. The plate was river-clean. He reached an arm across the counter to pick it up, when the appearance of a shadow and the quivering of feathers startled him. The plate clattered as he let go of it and rattled a bit before stopping. Jessie gulped the last bite down and turned her head. A feline-shape shadow lay on the floor below the clay entranceway, its lean tail curling and uncurling lazily.  
  
"Meowth..?!" she exclaimed, sliding off the stool and towards the cat's shadow. Wobbufet followed her in a rackety manner and saluted its comrade with one of its arms. The woman pushed past it and scowled. "It's about time you got here!!" Jessie reprimanded, walking haughtily towards the coiled-up cat. She didn't notice until she was uncomfortably close in proximity to it that it didn't walk like Meowth at all---theirs walked on 2 legs like they did, not on 4---it was Persian-like in the way it poised itself, with majestic deadliness. But that didn't stop her from chiding him.  
  
It seemed that the cat didn't take kindly to criticism. The Meowth snarled in feral tenacity, bounding off the clay floor with its hind paws, baring its front claws like daggers as it pounced.  
  
Neither Jessie nor James thought much of alley cats. They were puny, punkish, and foes they could handle. No doubt Jessie's untamable ego distended, and she threw her blob in the fray with a cocky smirk.  
  
"Meowth wants to play? Wobbufet, Counter!!"  
  
The glob radiated its psychic energy with unchanged mug, throwing its rounded-off body foward, driving its weight into the cat. Jessie knew this was one attack she could count on---it never failed, and it was another excuse not to ditch the loudmouth Pokémon that got them into trouble more times than one. But there's a first time for everything. The Meowth didn't even feel it. It mowed right through Wobbufet's defense and with one slash of its ivory claws and Wobbufet wasn't only out, knocking down the stool as it toppled, but bleeding. Jessie gaped. No run- of-the-mill alley Meowth was strong enough to draw that much blood in one scratch.  
  
This one must've been out of her league... not fightable, much less catchable....."Return---" she said, more than a little disillusioned as the red-streaked Pokémon vanished in light of the same hue.  
  
"This is serious...I must warn the Elders..." murmured the innkeeper, walking out from behind the counter only to find the killer cat staring at him hungrily. It reached for his throat when a wave of thick goo spilled on the cat, stretching over its eyes in twisting grey-black globs and blinding it with a sludge mask. Three Weezing barged and jostled each other between the clay walls. One of them inflated, toxic gases building in its jaws. "These must be the devils....." he hacked, hand clamped over his nose as the Weezing expelled their Smokescreen into the inn and swelled his lungs with toxins.  
  
"Glare, Arbok!!" Jessie ordered, unsurprised that the smoke didn't poison her lungs when she was just as susceptible to it as anyone else. The cobra's slit eyes locked so tightly with the Weezing's that both heads were sure it glowed with some kind of paranormal light. No matter how much experience a Pokémon had, the evil eye was one attack hard to steel itself for. And with Weezing...they had two separate brains controlling two separate heads, but in action they were linked. If one of them didn't look away, both succumbed to paralysis. The first Weezing froze, its toxic vapors caught in the coarse protrusions on its body, while the two other Weezing barged through. Jessie bolted from the inn, Arbok charging in a headbutt. Its divided tongue clattered as it came head-on against their rough hide, and it coiled its tail protectively around the rest of its body, the appendage still sore from the earlier wolf bite. It slithered out into the glaring red blaze from a sinking sun, and collided into a flurry of stiff feathers. She followed, her breath snagging in her lungs as fire and black clouds erupted from the doorway. The broken Weezing showered in pieces on the clay groundwork.  
  
Good riddance, she growled in her head, a fowl's triple-voiced squall facing her foward in time to duck a diving clump of feathers, beaks, and talons. But Arbok had no chance of avoidance. The Murkrow dove in succession, each strike of their steel-like bill ripping gashes into the cobra's scales. Jessie, her face falling and cracking her fire wall with a bit of a whimper, stretched out her PokéBall and recalled the bleeding serpent.  
  
The calm was over. In a vague sort of way she heard the fashion rejects in their animal skins and shell necklaces fending off the Murkrow horde with torches and rocks. Every once and a while the torch hit, charring feathers and fanning the flame of fury in the enemy.  
  
"Here, brothers---" called one with a club that ran past Jessie, knocking her over. in his haste. Her eyes shifted to the sides of her head to watch the pitiful attack of--it looked like Earthquake on the Murkrow. Even she and James---who didn't give a Raticate about elemental weaknesses, knew that birds fly in the air and not in the ground. But the amateurs didn't know that. The turf beneath her quaked and erupted, sending her flying up and landing her with a smack on the rock. The Murkrow yawped in base laughter, divebombing one of the Elders that fell instantly, gore spurting through a frayed hole in his chest. The four Elders glanced up in shock, and attacked in full force, activating the Materia lodged in their primitive weapons. Lightning bolts coursed out of the Materia in sizzling wires at the turmoil of feathers, striking them dead in a heap of crumpled limbs.  
  
But the onslaught still pursued. The Turks weren't towing Geodude without a reason. The Shin-Ra-trained Houndoom weren't mortiferous to even the altered beasts without a reason. The Pokémon freshly caught were sent to Gaia to survive the Kalm Fangs and Beachplugs. By then they were broken-in to the Shin-Ra way of combat. A few tangles separated the fittest from the feeble. They sent the survivors into the ruins of Midgar, where Mako concenrations were dangerously high. Breathing filled the lungs with it, but they were not infused. They were left there long enough to evolve to their more advanced stages, become implacable. Once the Mako levels maddened them into efficient killers, the SOLDIERs or Turks sent them back to Kanto to aggrandize the Shin-Ra ranks. But some occasionally got away, and there were too many transported to pay attention to the few escaped ones. They fled from Midgar, spread over the eastern continent, as far as the northern continent, Wutai----and the western continent.  
  
Wherever they infested, they did it with Shin-Ra proficiency. Kill indiscriminately and without provocaiton.  
  
The choleric Victreebel cut down the mechanic at the border, lashing out with their vines, some igniting near instantly while the others fought against the ineffectual lightning bolts and the even more useless cascades of ice that melted in the extreme heat. Over and again they hurled the Materia's power against the bestial onslaught. And as each of them fell, their torn-up bodies were unquestionable indication to the rest of the tribe to flee--by any available exit. The peacable settlement collapsed into chaos. Desperate youth hacked their way through the forbidden entrance with caches from the weapons shop. Familiar terrors were better than the bare unknown. They fled in droves through the main exit and in droves the Victreebel cut them down. They clambered over the cliffs themselves, clearing the top or perishing in the effort.  
  
But one query of reason joined their minds through disaster and catastrophe.  
  
Where is Nanaki?  
  
Jessie stopped hearing the heavy thump of her heart as she charged up the stairs, her own harried footfalls as she blindly ran past fleeing locals. The food she so recently ate jostled in her stomach, but whatever physical effect that would have on a regular person she didn't seem to feel. Fear masked everything. They strapped her on that roller coaster of nightmares once again, adding killer Pokémon to the boss that torched the HQ, wolves, freezing in a basement, the bats, the monster, the OTHER monster, coffins, and that two-headed creature-----fueling turmoil and chaos in her brain that she stopped thinking. She ran outside into the scarlet blaze, hearing the Weezing swell and groan a floor below her, while the Murkrow careened past the silent generators, scrawling incoherent phrases in the red dusk. .She burst into the next enclosed area, not seeing the other paths, only the ladder, as if she had a blinder on, or was following a piece of meat dangling in front of her. She scaled the ladder out of terror and out of want--maybe not her, personally---what she wanted was to get the hell out of there, but-----  
  
What was this something?  
  
Another nightmare sprint around and something within her found the entrance, the Murkrow claiming the lower stories. Soon as she burst out she burst in on the lighted cave, finding herself in a crowded lair, hearing the flickering energy in the adjacent room. The artificial dawn engulfed her vision.  
  
"It's that light----!!!"  
  
Home. What else could it be? Home---out of this new nightmare and back into the old.....  
  
She felt she could grasp it.  
  
The Rocket----the woman---the curious girl ran through the white hall, light pulsing around her vanishing form as she passed through the light, the groan of Weezing and shriek of Victreebel and all immediately behind her muffled and blotted- --  
  
The portal dumped her into the Vermillion downpour.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The sun made no plans on hiding that morning or the early afternoon. It reclaimed its stolen throne with a vengeance, and shone all the more resplendently, abusing Brock's night- thirsty eyes without relent. But Misty was okay. It didn't lessen the light-beating, for a second but knowing she was safe filled half the void. To fill the other...  
  
Suzy.....  
  
Brock crept along the path of his--remaining sister, stealing across the repeating pattern. If it continued straight-----as straight as her gait could get---it was that erratic--- it would head to Saffron. That's Hojo's next target, Brock inferred, raising the disfigured head slightly, bowed away from the fire in the sky. CAN'T let it happen again-----Misty?  
  
He peered, eyes squinted, one hand over his eyes, the other on the drying mud that shook the yoke of the rain from its surface in gradual evaporation. The blazing sun catalyzed it, dawing a thicker blind over the creature's red eyes. The hazy form of his friend plodded listlessly, but kept onward. She was afraid to look back at her demolished home which she vowed to protect and failed, and for that, the survivors branded her an outsider.In the very place she was BORN in...denied her.....  
  
She didn't need to hear their hostile mockery in her ears---she heard them well enough in her head.  
  
It weighed a lead load in her mind but how long she could dwell on it...she forced herself to bury it anywhere but the front of her mind....waste any more time and the liz would reduce another city, someone ELSE's hometown, to rubble...Make that town like Cerulean...and Pewter that went before it.  
  
She buried her sorrow for the time being under a thin layer of dread and ran alongside the trail, lagging far behind Brock. He was tracking his sister and the reptillian culprit--she had passed her own, freakish tracks and had reached the end of the Tauros prints. One looked much like the other--broad, flat, and pushed heavily in the surface. The ones ahead were lighter---much lighter. Like they weren't even there.  
  
There were three marks, two footprints lightly carved in the ground...and a wiry tail---kind of like Brock's, but-- the arrow was reversed-----  
  
"Graaaaaghhh!!!" Brock!! Someone besides Suzy's been here...The current urgency held all her faculties for now, and she gazed at the stranger's marks with a grunt that wandered to a growl edged with suspicion. There was no way they were Suzy's----- which were hoof-marks, and that sick nightmare, if it didn't mutate again, left giant pits in the ground. The ones here were almost human---if not for claws and a tail. And it was only there once, like it was a bird-man that landed, and then resumed flight.  
  
A rapid succession of stamping alerted her and she readied to either combat or escape from the onrushing malformation. But the hoarse, craggy roar assured her it was Brock. He opened his jaws as if about to say something, but when he caught sight of the out-of-place track, all other thought slowed to a halt---he dropped on all fours, tears running from his eyes as the sun swelled to unbearable intensity. But between rays of pain he detected the faint outlines of an impression in the earth. Feet that appeared to be human but fell short a few mismatched nitrogenous bases. And the tail......exactly like his, but inverted in shade and direction.  
  
Every one of the pores in his scaled skin started to bleed perspiration. No sound, human or bestial, could express the wakened dread freezing his black blood near to ice.  
  
He snatched the fleeting moments and skirred the land at lightning pace. The complete silence, the madness in his flight, that was some indication to Misty that they wouldn't be able to waste a second, and both bombed across the barren land between Cerulean and Saffron, striking past crushed and struggling trees under the sun that beat with its whip of fire, no longer obstacles, no longer anything---the city was all that was in their sight.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The crude, hastily-formed tunnel ran close to the surface, but it served its purpose. If it suddenly gave way he could climb out---hopefully by then his fur would be black enough that they'd mistake him for part of the landscape. If he kept his yellow-red eyes shut--- everything else was thick with grime. So on he toiled, meeting the wall of earth, digging through it, dragging himself foward, tunneling, "walking'. The alternation was laborious. But it wasn't his slow progress that worsened the situation---it was only that the Planet birthed him to walk above ground, not tunnel below it.  
  
Can't...breathe...he stopped for vital inhale, the musty space providing little fresh oxygen. Not unlike being underwater. Mud overhead, mud below, and that stifling space of bad air, shrinking as he tired and the earth churned foward to close the gap. Mud crashed against his sides, the drenched land moved as the ocean And for a terrestrial creature-----  
  
The bad air finally failed him, and he clamped onto the mobile cascades and forced his nose into the wrathful wind. Both land and gale worked against gravity and flung him to the surface, landing the dog on his back--RIGHT_UNDER _THE TANK.  
  
"Stupid error," Nanaki berated himself in a wheezing voice as he gazed directly up at the mammoth tank's base, hulking treads planted on either side of them. There was about two inches between his muzzle and the gargantuan surface.. If the tank sweved on its treads, he'd be a crushed dog. He gave a slight whimper, sorting out in his brain some way to sink in the ground when a splotch of silverish fluid landed on his nose. It expelled a malodorous gas as it shrank to viscid specks.  
  
He detected rips in the metal, hissing as something--- slowly burned through the mammoth hulk. Could it be that---He rubbed his foreankle with the other front paw and felt only his matted and tangled fur instead of the bronze bangle. "It must react with metal..." he inferred, a robotic grinding freezing his nerves for a split-second as the metallic behemoth backed on its creaky treads, halting right next to his head. All the while it dripped parts of its deforming body in globs, that seeped into the ground around his lean frame. "Maybe I can speed it up....." he thought, rolling over on his back, shoving the piles of earth with his snout onto the mechanism. He covered it, taking out the wheels from the inside, as the holes ripped wounds in it, gas poured out, air escaped, quickening the demise of the tires. Nanaki worked quickly, piling more of that deadly mud onto the target, listening for that lethal hiss. The tank, stripped of one half its support, crashed on its side. Nanaki grasped the motile ground ahead of him and dragged himself out, raising his wolfish snout skyward, the furious storm threatening to drive him back. Behind him the second tread churned, its other side fully submerged in the merciless sea of earth. By chance he heard the monotone whir and gazed up...the cannon. They had to be aiming at..something... He shoved a paw on his left, whole eye, swiping the thick patch of mud out of it. The skies weren't obscured enough to block out the silver flash, and their target became clear. "Cid."  
  
He waited as the disintegrating tanks loaded their cannons in exact unison with a heavy "chunk". "Whhhr" as they positioned themselves at precisely the same angle as all the rest, in militant rigidity. More holes ate into the first monstroity. It didn't matter. The cannons were going to fire anyways. Nanaki wondered who they were shooting for.. the dragon or the pilot. Maybe it was both. But------could he watch as Shin- Ra, their enemy, gunned down the pilot, even for revenge?  
  
Leave revenge to its inventors, Nanaki resolved. Countering in a battle, that wasn't revenge. Revenge is designed to strike the one who's wronged you when he least expects it, in his weakest moment. It's base, ignoble. A stigma of man.  
  
The dog resolutely leaped to his limit away from the behemoths, landing on his hind paws with the definite crunch of breaking b ones. He yelped as his legs failed under him, and he rolled a few more inches before ending up with his battered limbs in the air, the mud squeaking and slurping under his backside. More because of the incoming fire than the crunching pain in his innards he howled long and low, that sort of phantom-like noise that rang solitary in the night at Cosmo Canyon, carrying as far away to the Nibel Wolves, that acknowledged in their higher-pitched howls. The cry made his sides ache and sting, but the pilot should've gotten the message.  
  
The airborne dragon-man changed his course, ascending with rapidity that the projectiles couldn't match. The tanks fired through Black-rain battered cannons, its blazing phlegm leaking out of one of the tanks, devouring oxygen and consuming the engine of the mechanical giant. It enveloped the fuel and it caught fire, the exposed spark plugs and ignited wires exploding into geysers of blaze and bane. That took out the entire back line. The remaining tanks far enough away rumbled to its aid, readying its fiery sneeze. Another howl broke from the an indefinable spot on the foliage-bare field, , low and mournful, solitary and stolid.  
  
Thirty conflagarations bloomed from the smoking nostrils, headed for the winged creature. Whether that was the dragon's doing or Cid's doing it was anyone's guess, but he suspended himself in the air, bending the intractable gales to the fluid air currents that coursed over his wings, molding it into cyclonic shape, that descended towards the fire, coiling and wrapping the blaze in its clutches, heading for the ground in a blazing tornado. It shredded through the tanks as if paper, crunching and tearing noises ringing out over blood-choked-screams. Nanaki floundered haplessly, shrapnel and the increased wind hurtling him closer to the edge of the maelstrom, while the surviving SOLDIERs that had enough wits to back up in their melting tanks before the wind-fire hit unleashed their automatics.  
  
As an ex-SRAF, Cid knew to finish the kill, not leave the other guy alive to cut you down a moment later. But thanks to his permanent cargo, the dragon made him inadvertantly re-learn his way of thinking entirely--- lesson one still ached like shit.  
  
You're still feelin' hungry, fuckin' pig?  
  
I am satisfied. Are YOU still hungry?  
  
Cid's gut and guilt mangled his senses and his will, and he backed away, haphazardly dodging the wave of bullets and speeding off past the dying tornado, billowing smoke and lacerated machines. The remnants of the body he devoured seemed to scream inside him. It was only his stomach and intestine, but in his mind it expanded to wailing shrieks that died to a innard-choked burble.  
  
"Stop it...Leave me the hell alone!!" he yelled aloud, a whisper in the Black Rain's roar, an induced cramp incapacitating his left wing, bringing him down on the flooded sea. The rain fell hard enough to obscure everything, even the bits of gold blood from cuts and bruises from smashing through a plaster wall. But a grasping dementia minified the sensations of hurt or injury. The left wing twitched and flailed, the human losing control yet again. A bisected squirm etched on his worn visage and he dug his hands in his chest, raking them across his body in mad turmoil.  
  
"I'll STARVE the next time ya pull that---" he avowed, dragging himself up by his scaled elbows. One half of his mouth was twisted in obstinacy-----which soon collapsed to mortification. It took him a hard look into his soul to make him see.....and when it became too loathesome to look any longer, the dragon didn't even need to speak for Cid to realize that the blame was misdirected. "---Don't help me," he acquiesced, with his claws crossed over his bent head, servile to not the dragon, but to a far more immediate foe.  
  
The rumble of the remaining and collapsing tanks rumbled across the mud and barged through the dying wind-fire. Another howl brought half of him against the enemies outside of him---the ones that could take him down quicker. He grappled with the dragon, taking off lopsided with one wing, the blood collecting in his head as he tilted towards the racing ground, dropping him dizzy and inflamed at the dog's side.."The kitten doesn't always land on its feet, I see," remarked the dragon, flexing the strangled limb.  
  
"Cid," addressed the lame dog in guarded voice.  
  
"Bit off more than ya could chew, dog-breath?" Cid could afford to half- smirk, one less source of din in the storm: must've meant the Shin-Ra were out of tanks. The nearby blaze crackled without brush and grass for fuel, and it crackled stagnantly in a relative distance.  
  
The bestial warrior growled under his breath, weaponless and lame, his fur unruly and hanging from either side of his body, twitching with stabs of pain that alternated with a hollow numbness.  
  
"Between you and the Shin-Ra, I don't know which one to blame more," he answered coldly, his muzzle twisted in anger."It's difficult to fight with two broken legs." Cid didn't answer, his jaw set, sighting the former occupants of the disappeared tank hell-bent on some impersonal retribution. He clamped the dog's jaws shut with one hand and grabbed him under the chest with the other. He struggled fiercely with his unbroken legs, swiping and alashing with his short claws, but the dragon-man already took flight, entering the turbulent air currents whether his passenger liked it or not.  
  
Nanaki fought like the wild dog he was, biting, squirming, howling--if his back legs weren't out he could kick, but they were limp and useless, and he could only fight with the upper portion of his body and his re-ignited tail, that searched for the dragon's stiff wings whose lift shrank the SOLDIER-dotted ground, stealing him from one threat only to submerge him into the next.  
  
The pilot held him tighter, scowling with a half-bestial grimace, clamping one hand under his foaming jaw, saliva trickling down his scaled fist. His voice cut jagged tears in the maelstrom, heightened with the altitude. "Don't make me knock ya out just to get ya to keep still. I'm just repayin' the favor and the last thing I want is Drac here to throw ya down 'cause you don't trust us."  
  
The eye of suspicion grew no duller. It froze in resentment, hating his judgement...how could he trust a half-dragon? Duplicitous, marked with ambiguity....no less than a liar. And even with his muffled objection, the dragon escalated in velocity and altitude, the fear of falling freezing him still, literally under Cid's leathery wing, the menacing shadow of which forcing him to let belligerence subside lest Highwind was being truthful.  
  
He doubted it with every ounce of logic he posessed, but whether he kept his word or not, circumstances forced him to shut his mouth and assent. It was a long way down.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The mechanical ruins coughed their iron smoke into the ebony downpour, carrying high above the wasted remains of Shin-Ra's indomitable machines, past the dwarfish height of the swarm of Kanto-designed buildings, sailing above the most lofty point in the city.  
  
A ferocious grimace of teeth formed on the vapor-clouded window. It caged a tongue, anxious for the nightly feast of fish and milk, a delight that this emergency prepared to postpone, streaking the slit pupils in a foul glaze. He stalked away from the infuriating sight of the tower of smoke and the faraway glow that burned at its base. Gil smoldering with it. The lion's tail curled and folded in wait. He planted his paw on the desk, on which laid a pen, slippery with his own saliva for being unable to hold the implement properly in his paws, so he was forced to grip it in his teeth. He flipped the book-worth of pages over, revolted at his own handwriting, resembling more of a child's scribble than a speech to be read to the Vermillion inhabitants after this ordeal had been dealt with.  
  
Rufus filled his office, the appearance of which was a further abomination with clumps of his own FUR decking the chamber with products of his shedding--with the feral form of a domestic cat's meow. More recognizable, more aptly named as a seething roar. When it seemed that his conniving brain was overflowed with frustrated turmoil, Heidegger's beer-roughened voice crackled on the other end of the intercom. It did little to alleviate his fury-imbued mood, and resurgent migraines tended to be exacerbated more when one was given information---troubling information that he already was conscious of.  
  
"Sir, the troops stationed on the east gate---"  
  
Were defeated, Rufus finished, his tongue entangled amidst the sharp, puma-like teeth, that leaked out of the thought projection device a question unhampered by the brute sound. Do you think I'm unaware of that, Heidegger? I can see the smoke from my office. His tail wrapped and folded tensely, frigid fury mixed with unfaltering evenness with the relative tranquility. Now..would you care to EXPLAIN WHY they were defeated despite this generous allowance of eighty thousand men available in the Kanto region?  
  
A bit of stammering, crackling of the intercom hid some incoherent bellowing and a close thud. Invariably it was Heidegger berserking at this slight reprimand. As usual, nothing to show but incompetence.  
  
Speak, Heidegger. Do not bother giving me statistics on casualties.  
  
There was slow respiring on the other end, as if he was out of breath from roughing up the only men he could: his subordinates. As if he had to get his anger out that very second or he would explode as a mine does. Rufus caught the tail end of his cursing out the legmen as he reported with flawed composure, "Civilians report a dog and dragon---"  
  
A dragon, repeated Rufus, almost hearing the fluid in his veins boiling, steaming---- The OTHER creature in his fur------out of all the four-legged, tentacled, cross-bred---- aberration roving the city, it was the dragon that raised his fur, incensed his being. Perhaps because it was so evasive.....difficult to locate, difficult to destroy. What is the extent of the damage? growled the level inquiry. Do not tell me you have not procured the means of assessment----  
  
They're working on it, sir.  
  
While you are engaged in doing that...... Consider the possibility of dousing fire with fire, he half-suggested, half-hinted in a condescending manner, pushing back his head fur with a paw, still with that air of remoteness. Luckily Heidegger didn't detect this chide---- one less bruise for the nearest person whose only crime was being in close proximity to the berserker. Those miniatures from the harbor--have they been transported and evolved?  
  
"1-20 are evolved and waiting entry."  
  
What is delaying the other fifty? The irascible demand crackled across the intercom, made ferocious with the indistinguishable noise that engulfed it. A seemingly cool-headed tone countered the feline's snarl, a layer of ice over a bed of magma.  
  
"Portal 008 is the faulty one, you know, the one where Shin-Ra deported this bumpkin that didn't pay his taxes and--" Rufus could almost see that protruding belly shake with the imbecile's unneeded guffaw. He swiftly interrupted him, the feline lips unveiling the saliva-coated gums in what was nearly a brutish snarl.  
  
YES, I know that it is flawed----The even tone escalated in volume, freezing ice latching to the thought-voice. Why don't you lengthen your usefulness, cease that grating laugh of yours, and have the appropriate department REPAIR it...? He didn't wait for Heidegger's answer, and switched off the intercom with an agitated grunt. He strode past his paper-strewn desk towards the glass pane, watching the smoke obscure the black cape of night. He yowled as his paw impulsively leaned on his temple----the simultaneously infernal and face-saving thought-projector leaked an undercurrent of pain through his feline skull. Perhaps the resurgence of the headache was only a minor aggravation. The twenty Dragonite should be the decisive manuever in this crisis.  
  
Then the insufferable dragon, the repulsive mutants, contradictory to his scheme... they would all be out of his bristling fur. Afterwards, the focus would be on reconstruction, and pacifying the surviving taxpayers, patrons, donors, and other revenue sources to defray the cost of the damages. Of course, there remained the problem of locating and re-acquiring the four labrats.... the more private issue of bringing the two traitors to justice.  
  
He reached for a glass of milk that left a residual white ring on the exquisitely-furnished desk and poured it down in premature triumph. Repair budged to the forefront of his plotting brain. Retribution could idle for the moment.  
  
As for the issue of reconstruction.....being the president of this electric/weapons manufacturing company, Rufus knew when to rely on his own resources and when to exploit others'. And what better resource there was than Silph? Yet, since the one-sided merge, Silph was virtually Shin-Ra property. And this was all within regulation, undoubtedly. The contract sealed it in black ink when the unsuspecting president penned his wobbling signature on the dotted line. So...Rufus was merely using his own asset.  
  
It would be to my benefit if I contacted the fleecable old man.  
  
He replaced the glass with a clink on the polished surface, and grasped for the office phone. He gripped the machine clumsily and, after it slipping from the unwieldy paws, he forced the phone up the side of his head onto his ear, the receiver clacking on the metal band that constricted his head.  
  
After several perfunctory rings, he anticipated the Silph president's voice on the other line. That...voice..the very prospect of hearing it made him inwardly cringe. It was so.....jolly...naive... an old, benevolent, charismatic man on his way out. He didn't even have a successor in mind. A favorite with the people but a failure at big business which his own company exemplified to the highest degree. It would be so simple to publicly devour the local company once the dinosaur became extinct.  
  
What he didn't expect was for it to die out so rapidly.  
  
With much tiresome effort he succeeded in positioning the reciever on his ear. There was no jocular voice. It was replaced with a shrill shriek coiniciding with the perturbing crunch and gnash of tissue, bones and teeth, a hideous roaring---not of an animal but of an element---a conflagaration, he surmised. The predator finished its feast, and stalked away, the opposite phone's receiver baking at a considerably higher temperature catching the ponderous step of what presumably was the animal---sonorous even over the bawl of the flare.  
  
Not unlike the lumbersome reptile.  
  
His feline eyes glazed with power-lust. The smacked the phone onto its cradle, still grinning though it took several unsuccessful attempts to position it correctly. Rufus switched on the intercom and roared into it with matching ferocity,  
  
Heidegger, divert all outgoing troops to Saffron. Use any method to capture the creature-- Under no circumstances will you allow it to escape.  
  
He tapped the off button without waiting for an affirmative from the executive. A victorious expression siezed his feral features, and he guzzled without reserve the last drops of milk, assured of uncompromised triumph.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED......  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Another month, another chapter. ^^ Watch out for chapter 28.^^ If Giovanni is somewhere between TRHQ and Vermillion, he couldn't possibly in Saffron! So who could possibly be munching on Silph's president? And what about the ever-friendly Kuja-ripoff? What will befall Suzy? What will happen to Misty and Brock? Will Red and Cid fall hopelessly in love? Find out next time! 


	28. Two Minus OneHalf Equals Zero

End of A Reality  
  
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Enjoy! Intro is in picture form, which isn't ready yet.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter 28: 2 - 1/2 = 0  
  
*~*~*  
  
"Firshhhrkr at Silphshhhhhrr Co. Allsshhhrkk units in the shhhhhhsshtthhhhhrpnity of Saffron, resposrrrrrhrrr---"  
  
Like outside. "Shhhrrhhhhrhhhhhhh"  
  
"Sssssss.....hhhssssssss.."  
  
What are you saying?  
  
"Rrrrrrrrr....."  
  
It's not coming through Repeat that  
Again  
  
The static's in the way  
  
"Hsssssssssshhh....."  
  
Can't hear  
  
"Ssssssssssss......"  
  
Can hear perfectly well  
  
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr......."  
  
The question is.....  
  
"Hssssssssssshrrrrrrrrkkk....."  
  
Do you understand?  
  
*~*~*  
  
A wearied drizzle left a gossamer film on the apex of midget skyscrapers, that trickled slick moisture from its concrete edges, tumbling in scarce companies, too few and too feeble to devour the harrowed squad car that screeched around a narrow corner with its siren howling through the true night. A few solitary, maybe out-of-town malconformations slinked into sewers, into manholes, plunging back into the shadows to dodge the intrusive tires that jarred the raging vehicle out from the ruts and sent it speeding, another following in close succession. The creeping shadows meant little to the drivers tearing through the pavement with their rackety machines---a far more urgent catastrophe had reared its head, dire enough that it yanked every squad car, fire engine, and motorcycle from Saffron's public services department out of their respective garages even with the grave warning against setting so much as an eyelash outside. And when the Psychics predicted something you'd have to be stupid or from out-of-town to be cynical.  
  
"My aunt's coming over from Celadon for the holidays."  
  
Don't expect her.  
  
Why? Fire or water? You'll never see her again either way. Burn something long enough and you'll end up with ashes. But the water's uncertain. Prey to the predator, but which one? Humans by captivity or euthanasia, the food webs' outer fringes converging on and consuming the first-level consumer, or pride? You're too good for the dead rat. Eat and live. Don't eat and die. The whitest and blackest laws govern the living with its natural scythe. Any way, it's prey.  
  
*~*~*  
  
"rreeeeeeeeeeeee---" The wipers on the car smeared the opaque rain and forced it down the windshield. The car ran around the curbs, racing for the blaze. "-----eeeeeeeeeeeE-" The howling horn drove closer to the reddened site. "EEEEEEEEEE-----" Shorter. Medics got there first. Firefighters already set. Local cops were already out. And the servicemen from Vermillion. Some of the civilians didn't look so good. Like the rain was getting them sick. Pneumonia already?  
  
Nothing short of a catastrophe could've gotten the locals outside once the Psychics predicted the storm.  
  
But the eleven stories of a blazing pillar that raged with derisive defiance was nothing short of that catastrophe. The Rain...no one paid heed. They were stumbling out in floods, some of the cops already exhibiting the beginnings of behavioral changes as they strayed from their duty, firemen from their ladders, hose, and Squirtle, Squirtle from the cops, Chansey from their stretchers, leaving the wounded strapped on the stretcher, screaming or paralyzed with shock. Authorative demands for a rescued worker to stay away from the building sank in the crazed ravings of the humans that gradually lost their hold, the groaning faucet of the sky, with the drips of moisture it released, acting without delay on their mental faculties that were already diminished from the smoke fumes and the blind of flame.  
  
And already taking them out from inside. A stomach ache that wasn't because of adrenaline or an ulcer.  
  
As for the Shin-Ra unit-----at the risk of marring an efficient and deadly reputation as well as reducing their already meager pay--- retained their rigid unity. The masks with the Midgar- trained Blastoise that fell in tight formation on the ground with a machine's precision. From this immovable wall of water, a hardy brown entangled pattern of wings, beaks, and talons bearing Shin-Ra emblazoned globes soared under the water and shot up the column of air interposed between the building of fire and the building of concrete. The Fearow, as per the human order, opened their talons, the metallic spheres landing in the Black Rain film. It was too little to react, and the Blastoise burst out, spearing a downward assault on the upper floors rent by the blaze.This pattern mirrored itself on the building's opposite facade at a whistle's blast. They assaulted Silph from all sides. The fire writhed underneath this high-pressured spillage, a pulsing torrent searing through the heart of the flame and effacing it. If everything else was shadowed with uncertainty, it was sure that Shin-Ra knew how to use their assets. One cannon took one level while the opposite took the one directly above or beneath it. While the native units collapsed into stupefied individuals terror-struck with their own foaming and staggering intoxicated with the slow trickle seeping into their bodies, the SOLDIERs remained SOLDIER.  
  
The geysers pulsed from their sources, raging through the inferno twisting and dancing death on the eleventh floor, the vapor of steam shooting from the torn barricade, only to triple its strength and tenacity on the target.  
  
"Unbelievable..." the red-garbed commander growled under a restrained inhale. He marched a pace and belted, "Turn up the power--Hydro Pump!!!"  
  
"This IS Hydro Pump, sir-!!!" yelled the SOLDIER over the upward cascade of water, cutting through the fire that tripled its size for every foot it receded, intractable and fractious, taunting the shaken workers below, covered in ebony droplets, and taken by the indomitable change. Some clamored to charge into the charred stalk of concrete, fighting against the grip of the cops and the firemen and the greasy Black Rain film scattered in puddles on the blaze- lit asphalt. A few others, clumped around Officer Jenny's path, murmured about Silph's president.  
  
"It's impossible that he made it out," the officer said with frankness etched in her mouth. That wouldn't be the first time. The cycle of death and life went on all the time. But even with her line of work, for the line to end so abruptly, in the fire.....she crinkled her forehead. and took one look at the consuming fire, pursing her lips, the clamor growing louder around her and her dogs, dragging the fractious and mad workers. "What in the---?"  
  
Eleven stories off the ground the fire receded and resurged, blazing a light in the top-right corner of the building. There was something...strange about it..it was just a feeling in her gut, but pretty soon, those Blastoise would've been out of ammunition. Any moment the roar arching above their heads would peter into a trickling whimper of water. "Sergeant-----that's no accidental fire.."  
  
The Senior Grunt whirled in a red-faced fury.  
  
"You're telling me this why? It's your job to investigate its cause after we put out the damn---"  
  
Upstart. Woman too. That's why it's a mistake to let a woman tote a gun. They suddenly think they run the place, he grumbled resentfully. The encroacher's fitful gaze lay on the orange flame which the tumbling arches hammered at.  
  
What Pokémon could make that much fire?  
  
Charizard? Arcanine? Typhlosion?  
  
The fire spilled out in a cataract. Something twitched in her gut. Could it be the one? That totalled Viridian?  
  
"I've got a hunch it's the killer Pokémon---" Drilling and training kept her level-headed, but she could feel it herself--her throat drying out, her nerves rolling over. It scared her like it scared anyone else. "-you weaken it and--" The mask was brittle. "....-we'll do the rest." The commander leered. Unbelievable.....taking orders from a civilian---a woman----in Shin-Ra's sphere of influence...practically its principality!  
  
"Our orders are to exterminate." His voice dropped a notch, and he muttered, sitll red-faced with fury and embarassment, "And you're not going to give my men orders---Drain them dry!!!" he delivered the adamant shout over the dying roar of water, the cascade receding back into the river, drying up until only an occasional droplet smacked the ground when too heavy to hang to the rim of the cannon. The commander purpled and his lip tightened in a grimace. "That's what you get for trusting foreign weapons---stick with 100 % Gaian---" He thrust a gloved finger into the damp air. "--you, call summon 006!!" he directed. One of the SOLDIERs instantly, robotically reached for his gun and discharged it into the air, the force triggering the Materia that glowed its own eerie red amidst the blazing crimson above, and then died.  
  
"It malfun--"  
  
The human's unperturbed voice was shredded in the light and intense heat of the redoubled fire, overtaking the tenth floor. The commander stood stupefied, and didn't wait for the officer to butt in his arena again with some snide salt to irritate his cut pride.  
  
"Get those watering cans up there. The civilian might be right," he admitted, his upper teeth grinding against the lower ones. Given the order and a whistle blast, the Blastoise latched the wall. There was their advantages over Venusaur: they could switch from bipedal to quadrupedal, and they heaved their bulky bodies towards both of the blazing tongues that lashed like a chameleon's for a fly. The turtles scaled while the SOLDIERs trained their high-powered arms at the tenth floor windows. The magazines went like the water, pummeling the air with increased clamor. The final shell burst through the flame.... .that engulfed the ninth floor.The Blastoise were in the windows unobstructed from toppled debris, lost to sight, lost to communication, as if they were weapons themselves, innominate, and judging from the way they fired, regardless if they hit the Blastoise in the skull, the least useful of Shin-Ra's cache of weapons.  
  
Weapons that think, Jenny pondered in her mind with dry lip. The Blastoise passed the window, their lumbering, somewhat delayed gait taking more time for them to climb up the stairs than it took for the fire to consume the remains of the ninth floor. If that's the killer Pokémon...she had to get them out of there. Or at least advise them. But she knew what kind of people that had come to their city. Barely-disguised monsters that weren't above exploitation. Nothing they could do here. Nothing they could do...except go up there themselves.  
  
The Squirtle were on standby. The Growlithe and the other officers were on the wtach for the worst with the rescued Silph workers that refused to get in the ambulance. She was tied.  
  
*~*~*  
  
The fifth floor. From ground level they could spot the speck of lumbering turtles through the steel and chrome curtain. But it was too high up to discern details...no one saw the sweat from Blastoise's face. It couldn't be from the fire..maybe the heat of the smoke. Maybe because out of the humans' sight there was a killer surpassing the destructive capacity of anything it faced in Midgar...right, it was Midgar-trained. Nothing frightened it...it already had crushed Whole Eaters and Hell Houses while the Mako poisoned its lungs and crazed its mind...nothing...It withdrew into its shell and hurled itself spinning out of the view of the window for a Tackle, when a reptillian muzzle obscured the glass square, a jaw stretched open like the jaws of a cage and a jagged stub of a broken tongue writhed against the roof of the jaws reflexively, while the acid-coated, fire-stained fangs BROKE OPEN the shell and devoured the turtle, the cracked shield now smeared in blood clattering on the windowsill.  
  
No longer any doubt.  
  
This is it..the monster in Viridian...  
  
A massive snort burst through the flaring nostrils of the beast. Other Blastoise. Another food source. Plaster and concrete buckled against its weight, bulged, and burst, revealing the disfigured head, adorned with a horn flecked in Blastoise gore, its pathetic leftover of a tongue wriggling in its innard-spattered cage of teeth, its silence more menacing than its once-terrifying roar, now muted to the mere visible attempt and the auditory failure.  
  
"What in holy hell is that..?!" screamed the commander, all of his time- gained experience crumbling away to reveal a man just as freaked out as anyone else. How anyone could still keep his wits after witnessing that abominable muzzle, further defacing the building with its acidic drool, streaking it with indentation, shredding and renting the concrete wall with the lance-like horn?  
  
The same bulging and battered plaster masked the source of the lizard's distress. But what distress? Such a THING couldn't have emotions. Distress is an emotion, yes? It couldn't FEEL distress because it was less than an animal..a monster and a freak...  
  
Meanwhile Hojo primally expressed his vexation. It would not relent. That damned equine that had muted him in the crudest of fashions beat its pronged hooves against its mangled retinas and chipped the skull beneath all that impregnable hide. No sound to express this inexpressible..discomfort? No...more akin to pain, hurt..whatever you may call it...nothing to intimidate it, to ward it off, no painkiller, no way to ameliorate it. In desperation he struck blindly with his claws, chomped with his fangs, getting a mouthful of concrete that further buried into the inner walls of his burning jaws. Scorched concrete wreathed in fire welled up in his mouth and the boiling spillage burst out in twisted knots. The horse, unstoppable until this point, was startled and dropped from the window to the pavement, landing roughly on its knees.  
  
A normal horse---even a normal Ponyta or Rapidash would've snapped its legs or at the very least dislocated them. But the horse was fine, barring the bloody gash that no one saw against her ebony fur. Accusing voices from some of the scattered stretchers stabbed in her ears. Voices brimming with malice and terrified shock.....  
  
"It's another freak.."  
  
Like the voices in Pewter.  
  
"Could've been a Rapidash.."  
  
Scornful and shaming...she lost her childhood to that crowd.  
  
"It's not a Pokémon."  
  
Her neighbors and friends..  
  
"Demon? Devil?"  
  
They all turned on her.  
  
"Must be."  
  
Who had she left for haven?  
  
"Capture it--"  
  
Not people. They weren't her kind anymore.  
  
"Our orders are to exterminate. You'll let Shin-Ra handle this."  
  
They were the monsters in the closet, under the bed, lurking with their weapons of words and of steel.  
  
Suzy let the tables turn.  
  
An entire section of pavement collapsed as the beast landed, crunching SOLDIERs under its claws and bringing the horse towards the same pit out of which ground asphalt billowed behind her. The horse clamped on the edge with four hooves, her muzzle raised, only to see the people with knives--like the ones Brock kept for emergencies, only much...much bigger.  
  
"You, kill it quick! We've got the mother lode of behemoths breathing down our necks--" He loaded his own gun and they fell into their ranks, one death machine preparing to demolish the other, with their machine guns, their grenades, and their swords. Two of them ran and stopped at the pit, discharging their weapons at the drill sound. The horse cried and reared, dashing haphazardly in the pit, crashing against the rough stonelike hide of the Pokémon she proudly vowed to beat. But she was trapped under the table.  
  
Youth never fails to express a reckless boldness...  
  
Someone said something---a voice out of nowhere---someone was talking in her head. A strange voice, the kind of voice your parent or brother or sister would use for the shadowy figure that you didn't know was good or bad in a fairy tale.  
  
Was there any doubt? .  
W-who's that? she asked timidly, losing whatever boldness that had driven her through the lizard's tongue and kept up the chase for this long. Sparks and smoke flared in the black pit as bullets shredded the asphalt and clamorous yelling of the hooded men with their big knives and water pistols that didn't shoot water. She backed up against the scaly wall, the constant drill noise drawing the bullets closer. She climbed the wall that suddenly moved out from under her, leaving her in a heap. Ow-- -  
  
How infinitely curious, these aggressive tendencies...Indistinct yelling. The slip and crunch of boots on gravel that landed stealthily at the bottom. ..Constantly nullified by a brain that has not quite matured...Or should I say, denatured? A grotesque grin rose in the darkness as the flame spewed. The black horse was now in full view, scraping the pit's wall, in vain effort to get away. It started to clear up. She just wanted to help Brock, by chasing out another Pokémon. It was just big, really---Onix was big too. She wasn't afraid of Onix. Her child's mind warned her it was a bad Pokémon. But never would she think it capable of killing...feeding..on her. She scrambled to the other side, hearing a choked gurgle in her ears. The fire behind her revealed a bloodied person in red that flumped on the ground, a big knife stiff in his hand.  
  
H-hello? M-mister? Yo'kay?  
  
It barely registered what happened when Suzy felt hot breath behind her. The creature lunged, now chasing her, turning the tide, its hideous claws grinding into the asphalt wall. It crushed the corpse and lunged with its jaws, searching the air for the scent of horsemeat, baking the air. Suzy scrambled for air, out of the jagged crater, dragging herself up by the claws curving from her hooves. Flashes of smoke and light exploded by her and she reared and bucked, clopping a SOLDIER in the ribcage into the hole she just left. A geyser of fire and a shriek erupted from the pit. The Senior Grunt didn't flinch. "Get down there and finish it off!" ordered the commander without a second thought based on the ready equation: monster-slaying - no questions asked = gil.  
  
The horse blasted by them at inhuman velocity and away from the fire, the blind gaze of the monster more frightening than anything she could've dreamed of under the bed, rushing past the other monsters, people--bad people. Like the bad people at Pewter that kicked her out.  
  
They stopped chasing her. They were bad to her, but they'd stop the other bad one--the one that tried to eat her, that talked in her head using big words she didn't know. The darkness welcomed her with its black arms, the silence grew enormous as the only thing she could hear was the splatter of her hooves against the damp pavement and her cyclonic horn. In the obscurity creatures like her snaked and slithered around her hooves, some talking to her in her head and others deprived of all communication. She pushed past them, pinning their tails to the asphalt. She was still young, a child. It was easier for children to accept and adapt. She was little, now she was big. Day was scarce. Rice made her sick. She'd find something else.  
  
Indeed...she'd find something else.  
  
When winding your way through the blackness you fear the shadows, the lurking umbrage that cloak themselves with the night. Not the moonlight that sets the pavement ablaze. Never light.  
  
B-brock? she asked the descending light that drove her back, burying her muzzle in her side. She rasped a neigh, backing away from the poison light. It wound and weaved in white silk, sharp as any knife. Her head, neck and shoulders sank, the drill upwards in a wary defense.  
  
It didn't fear its own kind.  
  
"If there is a human here let the children of the storm be comforted: the tyrants are sentenced." Suzy looked at him in her childlike curiosity, snorted involuntarily, and stood her ground. Another person, but no weapon. Looked more like a Pokémon. Maybe somewhere in between. She stared blankly at the figure, its throat bearing a hungry tear. The angel's mouth creased lightly in an expectant indignation. "Ignorant child. We are now on the throne. You are searching for Daemon. I'm searching for him too." His mouth creased further into the beginnings of a scowl. His gossamer-cloaked arm glided to his neck and pressed it tenderly. "He must be punished for this act of rebellion. Would he prefer the tyrants enslave us for sport?" he asked derisively, bringing his hand away from his neck. That entire time he heard the clip of the hooves, the fear in the child's sweat and quieted breath. The fur-coated tail trailed along the puddle as it approached, with a smile emanating a glow. "Perhaps..you can help me find him."  
  
I wanna find my brother. She crouched midway between the shadow and illumination. The second, it kept her on guard. She raised her long muzzle, the black, ivory tornado cycling in the jet. On the half-person's face there was a warm glow of a smile warding her away. I don't want everyone mad at me, mister. They're all mad back home, and over there, too. They're all mad...."And what wrong have you done to merit this hatred?" Y-you mean why they're mad at me? "Innocent child.....they are angry because they are evil. I do not need to tell you this. Humans are evil. What they fear, they destroy." His right hand closed at his side. The blunted claws scored the flesh. A shining drop of blood wavered milky on the Black Rain's surface. "They are oppressors that must be destroyed." Des-troyed? What's that? she asked, angling her head in childish curiosity. "The children of the storm posess the power to purge this planet of that despicable race." He reached outward with his hand, penetrating the brain that sat under the skull, probing the memory without laying a hand on her head. "That pestilence you called neighbors and kin----expelled you from your nest because you loved your brother."  
  
At this the horse snorted and squirmed. She didn't see the hand in front of her, but the cruel lips of the angel made her uneasy and restless. "The battle is no longer a game, child.." Angelon extended his arm draped in that thin cloth, white as what could be seen of his body. "For your brother, purge the world of humans."  
  
What's 'purge'?  
  
Angelon said nothing more.  
  
Let his sister punish him for protecting the slime...... He lightly grazed his fingers over the ragged scar that had traced one of his arteries ...and for the damage. He advanced with the aura encircling him, outstretching his hand as if to lead her. His eyes closed, the Psychic focus clothed in a pseudo-divine facade stemming from his brain.  
  
If it was to his advantage.....to make the effacement sooner...  
  
What a child's mind can create is magnified when seen with their eyes.  
  
The horse shook her mane and blinked her scarlet eyes. The fur on her back bristled and she backed up, stunned at the sudden flurry of shapes that wavered in front of her. Her eyes snapped open, her nostrils dilated, and she half-reared. Images rose up to swallow her..faceless at first, somber and cold, terrible in their guarded silence. Ghosts, maybe..  
  
They grew from transluscent to opaque. They wore faces. Of her neighbors, the officer..jeering, a near-faceless shape in the background, with head buried, shaking, like she did when she was sad but didn't know how to express it.  
  
The voice is gone.  
Replaced with a primal speech.  
That all will hear and no one will know what it means. A new language. An ancient tongue. That's been extinguished. Now rekindled, who recognizes it?  
  
Isn't it hard if you can't make yourself understood? That you're speaking in jargon? That you don't have a language.....and no sound at all. No voice, no meaning. No meaning, alone. The world against you. A world armed with rocks and voices. Voices that are heard, that know they're heard, that grow louder as they're fed with approval from other voices that eventually echo each other so they're not many, but one venemous blade afire with boiled acid.  
  
Her brother shrivelled and stretched, his scream crushed and maimed as she grew farther away, the black shape fell lower under the rocks and the words.  
  
Her own family was among them.  
  
They became the knife-people. They crowded around her brother and hacked into him. His body jumped and writhed. It stopped moving. They moved in for her, wielding their knives. "They are all the same. Each desires your death." They swarmed her, their knives raised. She charged at them, driving her horn into a dispersed apparation. The snort was one of confusion.  
  
The angel withdrew his slender hand brimming with white veins. "If you have no concern for yourself, then for your brother.....What if you find him and...."  
  
The scaled demon---her brother stretched out on the pavement, his limbs torn off his body. Blood submerged a leg. Blood was what came out after getting a cut. It'd stop bleeding. It'd be better.  
  
He didn't.  
  
She jumped for him but he melted...retreated back into her mind. An invisible force released the manipulated optic nerve. It scared her so much she didn't realize her eye was twitching-- he was twitching her eye.....so it wasn't real. There was nothing...except for her, the alley, the two buildings that walled her in on two sides, and the man in the white dress. The rage of fire farther away. The cry of the men.  
  
Man.  
  
The true monster.  
  
So all monsters.  
  
Are one of us.  
  
Kill the man.  
  
The man is hate.  
  
The horse lowered her head and curled it inwards, tears dropping across her unremovable mask of scales. It mingled with the fur below it, down her ellongated muzzle, the equine snout..  
  
What'm I gonna do?  
  
"I know which humans will kill your kin. You must destroy them before they destroy your brother. I will light the way." He glided onto her back, bristling with the breed of excited uncertainty. The horse snorted, rearing with the impatience of youth as the white figure boarded her, reinless, bridleless, having no marks of the domesticated steed. Ah...they weren't needed. It would be a mockery. A mockery of his own doctrine. To slay the men.  
  
Her beacon washed the pavement with light. Suzy reared on her hind limbs and burst into a gallop away from the fire, prepared to hit them 'till they didn't move anymore. So they wouldn't do the same to her brother. The image hung in front of her, vague and transparent, but still there.  
  
Her eyes were twitching again. The meat in front of the hungry dog, or the worm in front of the fish. It was a cruel incentive...but it would ensure that the most mobile, most heavily-armed fragment of the humans were effaced. How convenient that Daemon's kin complied...he preferred willing assimilation as opposed to brainwashing...it was necessary to precipitate the dispersal...but he did not desire an army of drones. That was what a human would want. A human.... he passed his fingers over the white robe and tore it with the blunt claws, the other hand resting on the base of Suzy's neck.He tossed the garment into the air-- it was a human sign that he did not need to be burdened with. It scarcely landed before the claw-hooves trampled it in the Rain puddles.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Saffron's night sky had stripped itself of the man-made disguise and listlessly revealed its shielded visage. The faucet stopped leaking, and the shower that hit Saffron a bit easier than the southern cities vanished completely, the puddles and slippery pavement the only testimony that there ever was a Black Rain.  
  
That and the offspring. Funny..they couldn't see their reflections in the black puddles. What they became..never could see it in the Rain.  
  
Same for the winged streak that cleaved the air current and plunged, angled downward, a plane diving nose-down.  
  
Plane...he couldn't remember the last time he flew one. .  
What was the name of that airship?  
  
He named it after a pilot. Best damn flyer on the Shin-Ra Air Force.  
  
Good guy..sometimes the medals get to his head. He should keep his feet on the ground. Don't get too cocky. Ya get in trouble when you get too cocky. That goin' up and comin' down shit.  
  
Way down..through the dirt. Rock. Straight through the crust and mantle and core. Feel like I wiped out in the ground and fell out the other side.  
  
A high airy whine and a brush with the mutt's fur thrust Cid towards his senses. Still had his doubts... no. Too short a time. It'd take years...a lifetime maybe, for him to forget. You can't just drop your identity and all the memories wth it. That's what they're doin'...makin' you forget...  
  
"Fuck 'em," growled Cid, gripping the dog around his ribs tighter. Another whimper. "Fuck 'em all!" he snarled, the dragon's roar rumbling in his stomach still tumbling and churning from the raw meat still haunting his digestive tract.  
  
The dog meanwhile stayed still in the reptillian cradle. He dared not bite the arm that stood between him and the pavement far beneath. That and the behemoth. Wasn't sure if the dragon saw it. They passed right over a great black dune trapped in a pothole. The spurting heat entangled perspiration in his fur and he squirmed reflexively while nervously licking his nose. He had a feeling that this time, it would be impossible to escape a conflict with the monster. A momentary glance revealed he saw them. He pulled up for that reason. Nanaki read the maneuver and pointed his muzzle towards the shrinking ground.  
  
"I can feel the heat up here." A geyser pulsated at least fifty feet from the pit's bottom. The SOLDIERs had woven a ring and were blasting it with everything they had. A red arrangement of rectangles stood sideways with a ladder protruding from it with light blue worms that were squirting out a building's fire. "I have a bad feeling it's a WEAPON." The dragon didn't dive. "We should do what we can."  
  
The reaction was explosive, and the sentient jet took him farther up.  
  
"If ya think that I'm gonna lift a finger------claw---whatever the fuck it is, for the Shin-Ra-----" The tone suddenly changed but the voice remained the same. "I'm going to let go. You're enough of a burden with your mouth shut." Nanaki growled, pushed to wriggle out of the impending realization that he was unwanted baggage. Cid recovered, his muscles under the scaled skin becoming taut, while his head was wreathed in a laurel of sweat. "Don't do anythin' to piss the psycho off," he growled, rubbing the sweat out of his slit eyes. Awkward as hell...  
  
And who exactly is the psycho?  
  
Nanaki didn't answer what was drenched in coarse desperation a warning and a plea---maybe partially for his own depleting sanity. It wasn't enough that he was a dragon freak, that they wrenched him out of his ignornace in the most FUCKING painful way Hojo could concoct, and now he was a MAN- EATER while having the memories and the slipping illusions that he was still half a man. Even that was slipping. Sliding down the slope. Out of reach and out of recognition.  
  
The scaly beast sped over Saffron, guilt gnashing his gut. The heat from the fire diminished when they passed over the building into another district.. But he couldn't breathe any easier. Couldn't run away from yourself. Couldn't stop yourself from killing when you were just too weak to begin with.  
  
He dropped in altitude with his front heaved downwards, dodging the other creatures that blurred past him surrounded in flashes of dizzying, drugged-out light that lanced the dragon's slit pupils, and with frenzied, haggard eyes, searched for somethin to heal Red up quick. Who knew how long it'd be till the dog'd have to fight HIM... wasn't any time for a hospital. "Like I'd trust them doctors," he snorted derisively, anger buckling under the weight of a despairing, humiliating terror of the--that cut him down small and helpless-----like he was a 12 year old tyke again.  
  
Red suddenly felt heavy to carry. He dropped eye-level with the buildings. A howl here and there when Nanaki's tail smacked against the damp concrete and he jerked two feet back, all the while the flying coyotes and anteaters and other freaks hurled at him, their erratic flight path sending him spiralling across screwball traffic. This was shit. He clamped the wings and landed, behind a dwarfed building. The freak bottleneck above only got worse, and their flight as the light stream descended, uprooted the planted SOLDIERs and cracked them against the bricks. Both broke for the next street, dodging the one-track fliers.  
  
Cid ran the other way, hard breaths forcing their way through the black lungs. So much for a stress reliever, Cid grunted, feeling the dog's heartbeat pound against his own, his out of alert fear, his that Draconis Rex'd kill the smelly mutt. The pulse coursed, fierce and brisk, young rivers about to flood the banks.  
  
A dash through the labyrinth of emptier streets and they reached the Materia store indicated by a hastily-thrown-together sign that was nailed lopsided across "Mart". He flew sideways with bent wings through the door and met a mask that raged hostile with one look at his draconic freatures, with barely a vestige of man to glimpse.  
  
Barely?  
  
Maybe barely if he wasn't half-naked, the borrowed jeans caked up to the beltloop in mud, and his body overrun with sweat and the uncleaned residue of tissue, a wet dog laying draped over his disgusting elbow, dripping globs of muck on the waxed tiles.  
  
Wherever there wasn't mud there were.....Humans.....full humans with their dropped jaws, some scowling, others grabbing their nearest loved one and shivering, weak in their defenselessness, and still others recoiling in apparent disgust from the mud faucet and from its mud-slathered source.  
  
From the way they clung to each other, and the scowls...he knew from right off the bat the kind of shit they'd give him. .  
Behind the counter the cashier turned from conversing with his own kind.They stopped their exchange and one said out of the side of his mouth, out of which a strawberry gum wad hung lazily out.  
  
"That's what happens when there isn't a psychic in town. People go out, no ordinance, from city to zoo."  
  
"And the Shin-Ra executives get rich off extermination," the other answered, scratching his unscaled nose and leaning back on the counter. He glanced casually around and pointedly ignored the mud-drenched customer.  
  
"It doesn't change. They're putting Midgar on Earth."  
  
The crowd's eyes cussed him out a million times over.  
  
"Devon's dream turned nightmare."  
  
Have some respect, he wanted to say. I'm just as man as any of ya, he wanted to protest. The dirtiest of looks he knew real good. The freakiest of Unknowns in the Gelnika--- he shot 'em that when his spear came out the other side of them shits. That's how he looked at the writhing meat spilling fucking poison out of their green insides.  
  
They put him on the other side.  
  
"Wanna bet that's what they planned all along---a couple more millions in their pocket for the cure."  
  
It hurt. It hurt in there.  
  
"They probably've got it locked up somew---" Drip. The dragon had barged its way over the human crowd, dripping the slime on his body all over the waxed floor. The tiles were all painted brown and black now. But these people didn't appreciate artists.. "--well, what'd we have here?"  
  
The cashier turned halfway and retrieved a sign. He smacked it on the counter in full view of the dripping dragon with a sort of knowing smirk.  
  
OLD CURRENCY OR GIL ONLY  
  
"Not that you could read it."  
  
The pilot's pride hardened..he wasn't about to lay down and become a simpering little sludge ball for everyone to sneer at and throw around.  
  
"I ain't gonna take any shit from ya, alright?" He imprinted the rough shape of his arm in Black Rain on the rounded counter. " I came here for a Cure Materia--" He stalked rather than walked, scraping the muddy tracks on the tiles and spreading the mess around, washing the white in brown and black, filling the sterile shop with the outside odor of dirt and slime. The people squirmed closer to the walls. One sensed trrouble and blew out of there in spite of the light traffic bowling across the alleys. Better out there than in here.  
  
The cashier grinned and wore a placating mask.  
  
"Don't want to make trouble for you. What's that you need, a Cure Materia?" The cashier reached for a PokéBall equipped with linked Materia slots and held it out wiht a lopsided smirk. "I'm sorry, we've only got Bolt3 in stock." He raised the solidified Mako and with a buzzing crack and a high-pitched zap, Cid doubled over with a roaring groan at the old famliar shock of getting electrocuted, except now--made to feel it more as an airborne dragon, feel the staggering shock that lanced like the spear...turning his own weapon against him and gutting him and the lame dog like a Bandersnatch.  
  
Some sneered, jeered, laughed, crossed their arms and nodded in curt approval.  
  
He raised his singed head bowed low, cut in a few places, his drooping body brimming with the vestiges of the shock, the very scales quivering, a twisted leer carved on his features, his arm tightened on the sparking dog whose broken howl abated.  
  
Draconis Rex swept his pain aside and hurled vengeance in its place. Exaggerated...blown-up..magnified...overkill.  
  
"You want to play games. You won't mind that I join in." It wasn't a an invitation. The cashier noted the difference in his tone. But he was expecting it. There was going to be some blood and he let it escalate. But the grip caught him unaware. Crushing, a vice clamped on his neck, squeezing, ripping a sanguine gurgle from a mouth that had laughed only a moment ago. A sharp blow to the head, the flourescent lamps suspended from the ceiling swam. "Hunting. A human's amusement." Some of them, whether it was from cowardice or stupidity, shot out before it got ugly. "A fine sport---" He raised both arms and conquered the ex- pilot. Draconis Rex clamped his claws on the back and front of the neck, his grin sharpening as the cashier gurgled and raked his nails across the counter. There was no twitch as the bones crunched. A shriek from the humans as the creature severed the head from the neck. "--In which they take the head as a trophy--" The regal monarch snatched the bloody mess up and raised it over his head, crowning himself in blood which he licked up avariciously. "And mount it." Then with a deft swing, dropped the head and smashed it into the wall with the reptillian tail. "For the curious observer. maybe the hunter will place a plaque." He glided to the wall---by now the remaining humans had frozen. Their blood had stopped. The weaker of heart died from trauma and slipped face-down in the mud that they were endeavouring so hard to avoid. He leaned on his right hind leg and brought his claws to the wall, and then stopped, and smiled as if he was doing them all a great favor. "But--unlike you---I won't disgrace my trophy by letting it keep its idenitity..as one of your filthy own---" The nightmarish sneer divided once more as the powerless deserter fell on his knees quaking from , his wings curled around his body that seved as some warped canvas on which the mediums were mixed. His head lay powerless on the ground. His stomach knotted itself like you tie a piece of rope and strangled a rasped choke.  
  
Whatever you do, don't even dare to look up. At the head. At the blood. It'll make make you crazy...crazier. Get the fucking Materia and get the fuck out. Before you kill again. Before they kill you.  
  
So it's all about you? Not an ounce of guilt for the smashed head? No guilt? You can eat him with a clean conscience---Eat him---eat him---"Goddamn it, get the hell away from me!!!!!" he roared madly at himself, standing straight up with his claws buried in his temples that oozed gold--add gold to the defiled canvas---what a blend...a masterpiece.....  
  
He buried his sticky arm in the stacks of Materia, all the while, his gaze straight ahead, not to the side, where the bodies were, not up, where the head was. He knocked the pieces down and they hit the floor with almost--deliberately sonorous clinks. He grasped the Cure in his stained hand and tossed it at Nanaki's paws, his lower jaw chattering against his half- flat, half-pointed teeth. He felt him behind him. His wings spread over him, the dragon ready to put him under his feet at any moment. The muddy wolf/lion made no move to snatch it. "Christ...c'mon, mutt, fine time for ya to go catatonic---" A half-smirk turned imploring and madly desperate. "Use the fucking Cure..!!!"  
  
And get the hell out.  
  
Because you don't want it to sink in.  
  
Cid cast a drowning glance at the dog, silent, steadfast, biting his tongue, judging and condemning with that solitary eye.  
  
Death for Bolt3. Cruel.....painful...but death? And desecration. There was something about desecrating a corpse----even as detestable as an intolerant and malicious human--that bothered him, that stirred up the memories of old folklore. Maybe because of the Gi. What they would do their rival, human tribes...how they would systematically, ritually--- maim their corpses, and arrange the parts in such a way that appealed to their sanguinary gods.  
  
How the dragon seemed so much like the Gi, now.  
  
"I won't drink an innocent's blood."  
  
You are the enemy. You are the Gi.  
  
The dragon heaved Cid's body foward, devoured by impatience. Nanaki''s caked fur bristled and growled as he would at any other foe. The compact attack stance, the lowered muzzle, flattened ears, foam leaking from between his sharp teeth.  
  
To die was foolish...if survival meant that he could put an end to the threat.  
  
Nanaki caught the Materia with his unbroken paw. A swipe climbed it over his muzzle and into the comb he wore in his seeds of a mane. He activated the solid Mako and the glow wrapped around his limbs, mending the bones by someone else's blood. At that very moment Draconis Rex attacked. Nanaki leaped over the flying target and scrambled up the shelves, knocking them down with a cacophanous clatter of Materia and vials of liquid and spray bottles. He sprang off of one of the spilt vials for the pulsing throat that vanished from sight, the sweep of his wings whisking him across the ceiling out of reach of the lupine jaws. The dragon glided sideways through the door, the gate to the sky, to his element. "Putting himself at an advantage," noted the dog. The nimble mass of red fur broke in pursuit, his earth-confined shadow pitifully lagging behind the dragon's. The strength and endurance of a land bound creature was nothing pitted against one who reigned the clouds. The ceiling gave way to the dome above, burning with the blazing aura of the intertwining spirals of energy from the bestial traffic overhead that converged on each other, obscuring the dragon.  
  
The army was well-equipped and efficient. The nose rushed to replace the eye. The dragon wasn't hard to track--he reeked of blood, mud, and chemicals----maneuvering around the buildings whose shadows melded with the other was a whole other thing.The city and its illusions, a yawning black pit---a silhouette, an actual building, the street, the image of the street, an actual building. Ahead and above the dragon flew, backwards, erect, arrogant, invincible, his sadistic mug grinning down at the dog. He knew the futility. That wall made unscalable without wings blocked the wolf/lion from getting his flesh between his teeth. Add that to this formidable shield of lesser creatures, hurtling to a common point, for what reason he cared not.  
  
But.....  
  
You know why he's after you...  
  
Reparation for the human race. The hide that feeds you. Us.  
  
"And who'd know it better'n me, huh?" The clenched teeth were again divided. Split.cracked..unwhole. One rode the current with a sardonic grin, the other dragged along it with the rending hopelessness..to do anything, but to watch, to scream until the voice was gone, to grab and tear at the offending arm only to realize that's where you wanted it to go...to fall on the man..on the enemy...  
  
To slip farther away from yourself.  
  
While someone else consumes you.  
  
Tearing you apart, playing with your mind, it's toy and it's puppet.  
  
When you find out it's you.  
  
It's been you all along.  
  
Nanaki heard a human scream on the threshold of becoming bestial. The ex-pliot swerved around the building. The dog followed, his tread beading his shin in dark fluid. The dog shook his fur free of Black Rain while running, bursting from a thick encasing. He sped around the corner, his matted fur slipping on the slick surface. The airborne creatures touched down in front of him, in a quasi-militaristic way, like those in which discipline was inherent, and it wasn't ground into them with a piece of meat or an iron rod.  
  
He avoided them as one jumps over a rock or a log, none of them taking notice. One of their clawed hands grazed--briefly---his hind leg, in a motion that his front-focused eye wouldn't allow him to see.  
  
"Kdrrrbb...iiiii...."  
  
Nanaki brushed by the leader, knicked by what was that---brainwaves-? Come to think of it...they were everywhere.....at his flank, reaching his muzzle, rattling the innards of his jaw. But his nose drew him past without a glance at the ranks of monsters. A dog's nose is single-minded and encompassing all at once. His eye replaced his nose again. The bronze shroud and its light was gone. There remained the dragon. As well as all else, the SOLDIERs crowded around a pit, firing into it, flashing sirens and an abandoned fire truck, an ambulance, humans with fire dogs scurrying and falling, eggs wheeling humans into ambulances. Without a Sense Materia, the dog could smell it.  
  
"That's it....." Nanaki gasped, still running.  
  
"Just like a puppy," the creature jeered, turning the back line of SOLDIERs. Effortlessly, arrogantly, he swept under the bullets. "Chasing game that can't be caught." He laughed at the risk. He was young. He was invincible.  
  
The game ended when a geyser of fire erupted from the pit. The dragon caught in the overturned cascade of vomit. One eye increasing in petulance and the other dilated, like Quake3 in the retinas as he plunged into the oven and caught in the jaws of the baker. Pain shot through his wings. Shin-Ra Steel raised level with his head at the same time acid- coated ivory tore through the veins, drawing spurts of blood that streaked the stretched hide of the wings. Made them heavier. Flapping ate up his stamina...  
  
"Hold your fire. It's as good as dead."  
  
Draconis Rex struggled for control, despairingly trying to work the appendages, appalled that not even he had the power to free himself..or his enemy. Stretching, twisting, to no avail---and Cid grinned sardonically at the draconic side.  
  
"Ya broke your own wings," he stated bluntly. He made no move, no effort to free either of them. He stepped on the dragon's head and breathed in, amid choked and strangled breaths, the air of victory. Ah, but the balance was what made the dragon lethal. He might have fallen short on power. But he filled the void with speed and wits. "Who said they were broken? You call it quits far too easily, Highwind." He raised the claws and thrust them with all the strength he had into the eye sockets, clawing at the shreds of tangled muscle that weaved a net on the underside of the hollow socket. An agonized swerve of the head, a loosening of the acidic jaws, a last rip, and the dragon sprang from the death trap.  
  
"Open fire!"  
  
Into a gauntlet of bullets. The dragon plummeted, with burnt, scored wings, convulsing as one or two of them pierced him. He rolled on the rough pavement. Vaguely he felt the Shin-Ra's gaze and weapons on him.  
  
But the red bullet struck first. He pinned the target with his paws, a low growl in his throat. The bullets came at both of them. But as long as he had the solidified Mako...  
  
"You gave up on Highwind already?" It was Cid's voice. But was it Cid? The whizz and crack of bullets broke through his ear, but very little registered. The dog was glowing a faint crimson. Somewhere along the way he had ensured against any assault for a brief time, a reaction that catalyzed the platelets' reaction, closing the wounds in flesh, expelling the normally deadly projectile as it closed, repairing bone, and---foreign to the other planet-- muscle, whatever it was, this thing called Magic, stimulating the cells to divide and repair the broken muscles. Never mind the logistics. That's what it did.  
  
"Then feel free to punish him for giving you so much grief." The same voice and different tone filtered in his ears and played with his mind as if it were modelling clay. The different tone...the biting edge of sadism.. This should have told him the difference. But how could he, solidified, whole, understand the multiple personalities of Cloud, Vincent----how much more with Cid? Through all this, and the punctuated and brief pain as the bullets punctured him only to be expelled a moment later, he knew something disturbed the back of his brain. Cid wasn't that type of two-faced human. Hojo had twisted his brain into something unrecognizable and made him more dangerous than any WEAPON. A known pattern of explosively lethal attacks paled when held against a foe whose next word was unpredictable. Because they had double weapons, the ones with speech. Like wielding double-edged lances. But he didn't know it was two beings. The same voice, the same man.  
  
Nanaki sought for efficient kills. The quickest brought the least pain. Better if it was instantaneous. But-----this enemy---to pronounce judgement on him by himself--a cruel injustice worthy of being called human. That left incapacitating him. If heredity left him a twisted mind, he would stifle him---take out the wings, rip out the tongue, bite off the limbs and tail. It was hard for Nanaki how to be sadistic. He was efective but uncorrupted with the poison of that lust to torture and to prolong agony to the greatest degree for the longest possible time.....he instead grabbed him roughly by the back of the neck, wolflike, and started to run, prey in his mouth, away from the hail of bullets, and the scurrying humans, the fire engine, and the squad car.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Static is better than no static and no one on the other line.  
  
"No response from Cerulean."  
  
"Vermillion?"  
  
"No signal."  
  
"If that thing wipes out Shin-Ra, we have no choice."  
  
"If? Don't you mean WHEN."  
  
"You look at it that way, we're already sunk..."  
  
The dog dragged the dragon towards the squad car, his wings folded on the dog's muzzle. He ran blindly and deafly, stumbling in the path of the headlights. "My God...it's another one. Two of them." One raised his gun behind the car door, shaking before a freak power of nature, and he a man with a pistol. It might as well have been plastic. The chaotic struggle between wolf amd dragon threw the two against the door, crushing the human against the car's side and dropping him, grasping his arm that had seen more than a fair share of knife-scars and bullet wounds in fresh and acute pain. The dog's shadow darkened the pavement and dispersed, a red shimmer enveloped the dragon, and its bloodied wings rose to lance the sky.  
  
"Don't you feel idiotic, pup? Regen on your target could drag out the fight." All of a sudden he took off, the confused Nanaki's teeth still piercing the flesh on his neck. The shadow shrunk. The injured human struggled up, the other one, tersely restricted by Shin-Ra to backup, rushing to his aid.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"Officer Jenny, it's getting away--!"  
  
"They're heading for the Psychic field." She winced at the persistent hum in her head and reeled from it, clutching one of her temples."We'd better---stay in our own league if we want to be around to fight......it." She ran into the car and took out the radio for a last time, watching the Shin-Ra acridly though the windshield. They had been ordered to stay out of it, to act as strictly backup, "unequipped" for such a "dangerous obstacle". But as the radio still gave her a negative, she sighed and wondered if they were right.  
  
Her dogs barked and whimpered tensely. Through the smudged window the torrid breath of the beast groaned and gurgled, the Shin-Ra biding, with their state-of-the-art weapons, a well-maintained engine of death waiting for its match."We've got pistols and Growlithe," she muttered, dropped the radio, and slammed the car door.  
  
Shin-Ra...they were weapons that held weapons. Made nearly inhuman with the Mako, against their kingdom equal..it wasn't easy to call them people. Then there were the updated communications between Saffron and Vermillion that were cut with the collapse of Silph. They were fighting for survival, not to apprehend, as Rufus had demanded.  
  
To the last blood.  
  
Blood..The dragon's blood still streamed down the back of Cid's neck, and the dog's teeth in the wound, his claws digging into the splatter of mud, man's blood, and Black Rain....but why Cid? It wasn't right to say Cid. It was the dragon in control now.  
  
Yet..are you confused at what feels what? Yes, you. Do you know if his emotions are his own? Or did he let himself be absorbed, dove into the gulf of his other self? Is it safer there? Is it safer not to think? Was he sick of fighting himself? Did the ex-pilot finally admitted defeat?  
  
Or do you want him to become one, to accept himself, to accept his beast as his burden... A whole is better than a half. Incomplete, always in conflict. Would you dare to witness the globe of chaos reforged?  
  
All of that was irrelevant. The Psychic wall reacted from an unvociferated order given from the other side. The leader, an Umbreon helmeted, like a Cubone wears its mother's skull..breastplated, and gauntleted in what appeared to be Kadabra hide, its jet ears standing alert through the bronze-hued helmet, its red-black eyes engorged with the Psychic aura. Upon closer examination, the armor did not move---the Umbreon wasn't wearing the Kadabra: the two breeds were genetically fused into one organism. Psychic and Dark--if there were no flaws in its structure, it was immune to the two elements that composed it. If there were no flaws.  
  
The creature felt the conflict. The inner struggle of one set of organs against their stark mirror-image. Its response to this new-found pain was to withdraw, to become as it was before, as a human, calculating, deliberate, cruel beyond imagination. Void of feeling for others. The most deadliest of leaders.  
  
At the very least, this time it was to preserve Saffron instead of for her own amusement. Her preliminary technique was simple. Blockade. Trap not only the target but anyone else within the premises. Make it a closed system where she could manipulate the results as she pleased with no outside interference. Whether for her enjoyment as a result of her being a reflection of chlidhood stunted in a woman's body, or for protecting her brood's territory, the strategy was the same, and she assembled the words without effort or exertion and radiated them back to the defensive line.  
  
Let no one leave.  
  
At once a twisted mockery of an Abra vanished and reappeared, the transparent wall travelling with it as it levitated. Cid and Red rebounded as if they connected with a stone wall and crashed, the dog flattened against the pavement. From his inverted stance he sighted the dance of bronze, the aching vibrations that hummed deeper in hs ears. He clamped his paws over them, teeth locked in a grimace. The bronze and ebony leader signalled with the pulsating light from her body.  
  
Potential energy is maximum level.  
  
Release.  
  
Just as the dragon leaped up on his fours, stomping on the dog's recently-healed hind legs, his howl was stifled in the consuming wave of pulsing energy that converged from opposing points, caring not at what stood-- or lay--in the way. The two energy waves met at the center of the pit, drawing screams from the SOLDIERs with their unearthed humanity. The explosions in their brains, the reaction of the endless systems of nerves, making the assault physical, besting the damage of any Rock Slide or Dragon Rage without drawing a single drop of blood. And even then, the fallen SOLDIERs shrieked as if being quartered.  
  
The Psychics in their cold efficiency prepared to Teleport.  
  
.....I detect your bewilderment...  
  
The low tremor of earth as the monster stalked its asphalt prison, vapor pouring from the fissure, that intermittent fire not nearly as much a concern as the one still collapsing the Silph building, combatted by teams of Squirtle on the projecting ladder.  
  
The Psychic ocean had drowned anyone in its range. Now, the dragon...was just recovering, spun and whirled on a fast carousel, the digested meat tossed and thrown all over his stomach, begging to be splattered on the pavement, on which the Psychic lines stood immobilized, fixated on the link this apparently intelligent lifeform forged.  
  
It is a genotypic farce, but a farce nonetheless. You will find your efforts ineffectual.  
  
It has a lot of nerve.  
  
Quite intrusive.  
  
We will see its responsiveness to pain, the female monotone reverberated, exacting, frigid. The 'armored' leader raised her Kadabra's claw below her jaw, about thirty even mirroring her precise motion, the energy engulfing the malconformed hands, and they squeezed and strained, but the monster did not freeze in their paralyzing grasp.  
  
It is the overwhelming tendency for various organisms to attack the mind when they are too muscularly challenged to cause any significant bodily trauma...  
  
A hideous limb leered over the edge. Can your output be equal or greater to the input? Pebbles plummeted as the gravel loosened, dropped to the bottom with the shaking force that dislodged them.  
  
The firing began as soon as that hint of hide presented itself. Nothing was spared. Grenades, molotovs, Deadly Waste, 8-inch Cannons, barrage after barrage. The monster kept coming. Its second llimb clasped the edge, feeling for it, its four other senses vital for..advancement? Discovery? For survival. For sustenance. The taste of human in the air, flesh and ferrum, the latter no less appetizing than the former-----even though his olfactory senses intercepted the Mako smell....quite a degree less enticing to Zero-X's impartial appetite.So. The hide was hot..the steel could be used against the very ones who wielded it. Like them he spared nothing.  
  
He dragged his unwieldly girth up, slipping on the gravel, the limbs clinging and sliding against gravity, as the explosions of the lethal armaments cracked against this monstrous hide, a shield in itself, aiming at anywhere instead of vital areas that weren't ready to collapse either. First the claws, and the first limb, and second limb, and before long the head yawned in their scopes.  
  
All the while the army of Psychics waited, anticipating. Before the first wave of gore, before Saffron was submerged...  
  
The hind claws barely gripped the gouged-out edge when the leader issued a command.  
  
Let's play..  
  
Live chess caught her fancy. A4 to D4. With a deft action of their concerted power, they entrapped a straggler on the far right shoulder.  
  
H4 to D4.  
  
The opposite line mirrored.  
  
C4 to 1800 ft.  
  
Up.  
  
1800 ft to D4.  
  
And down.  
  
The SOLDIER plummeted, the Psychics pulling him down faster than gravity. Years of training and drilling failed him: his nerves were locked not with fear, but with the manipulation. They had all at once puppeted everything, not a movement was voluntary. By their will he pointed his sword downwards. The buildings and street blew up from midgets. The target came up instantaneously. It hit.  
  
The sword cleaved into flying shards that gored the body. It hit like the surface was granite. The immediate corpse crumpled on itself, the spine snapped and lodged into the smashed cranimum. The beast snorted its noxious breath from its nostrils, unaffected by the splatted gore in a Shin-Ra uniform. As the monster moved it rolled off his side and onto the two other obliterated bodies that the Psychics' manipulation failed to even cut the first layer of skin.  
  
Checkmate, the grease-membraned voice muttered in the Psychics' heads as Hojo blindly broke the dam and the hot surf broke against the human reef, when a black meteorite crashed into the earth. The fire receded back to its source, drawing the curtain open. The cops not thirty feet away crawled out from behind the car, inspecting the mangled hood when the horrific smell of burnt flesh and bone gouged through their nostrils into their brains. Some of them hardly singed and treading their sweat, discharging their ammunition at the overturned target. Others badly scorched, baked, and the rest, heaps of ash that the residue of a bursting grenade wrapped around the muzzle that fell heavy on the scorched and battered asphalt, gripped firmly by a dark hand. Two sets of claws flung out, one lodged in where his ribs would be under those pounds of flesh, the other in his head. The slice was enough to shoot pain thorugh his body as a rifle ball lodged between the two folds. The heaving mass roared in silence, and the surviving SOLDIERs swamped the downed piece of flesh, drawing their swords in concert.  
  
Horse got his tongue. A cracked, broken laugh, twisted sardonically with the human foot forever on his back. What are you waiting for, Misty? Start dissecting.  
  
"Raaaghhhhh!!!!" was the feral reply to this cold, striking impartiality. Hojo felt the two wounds tear more, one with a slice, other with deeper ripping, and the Shin-Ra's seemingly limitless weapons rising with hideous mockery from the incresingly enlargening wound, a travesty of war banners or reminders of the defeat that the victor plunged into the conquered.... What was that? It must have been a sword. Yes, he had felt that sensation more than he believed his fair share on the Sector 8 platform. No doubt that they salvaged his decomposing remains, reanimated the tissue and organs, that at this moment was being mangled down to the bloody ribcage. Well, what do you know? It's still alive! Brock taunted in mock sympathy. We'll have to fix that, won't we? His blood- gorged hands dripped the rib and he reached inside the blood-bathed body for the pulsing muscle.  
  
This new ability......of mine would be timely at present...but perhaps- --yes, of course, an immunity..in the case of which...The flamethrower spurted in a random direction, guided neither by hearing nor scent. The Gyarados raced awkwardly over Hojo's arched back, in her stifling grief, made her eager for the blood feast. One can leave their mind at a kin's grave and forget they dropped it. Maybe it was intermittent, when her sorrow was at its acme, but.....  
  
She freed the head. He thrust it foward, massive enough to drag the rest of the bloody carcass. One hind leg heaved itself from the ground and blocked the nimble and driven claws from the vital muscle. The giant's claws closed over Gemini's and crushed downwards, the assault slow enough that Brock evaded it narrowly, but lost his chance. The monster clawed the pavement with all four limbs, quarts of the liquid collecting around the hide. He fled, cleaving the squad car in half and sending the engine with its sorry wrapper of metal crush and crumple on the wall. The torn engine leaked fuel like blood. The beast came to a vertical surface, crushing the SOLDIERs beneath his claws as he advanced, feeling it with his rough skin, and climbed, instinct dictating, slantwards one direction and slantwards another, lacking direction, unsure of its aim, the blood stream drying as the platelets started clotting. He vaguely heard Gemini's claws scraping the building. And the humans below could do nothing to stop them.  
  
"Have the building evacuated," Jenny ordered, blinking fiercely to keep her bearing through a nightmarish whirlwind of the disaster train: the totalled car, ash piles that were so recently human beings, SOLDIERs' bodies, Silph building scorched and totally destroyed, the volcanic heat too much even for her Growlithe, the Psychics blocking the exit, and the three monsters at large.  
  
She and the other officer ran under the forbidding shadow of the three monsters--two more coming up from the left.....Two more freaks.....all they needed right now.  
  
On the other end of the street the figure of the dragon was bent sideways, the dog still clamped on his neck, both nauseated, both swamped with a whirling brain, confusion, disorientation. The dragon flew backwards, brushing the barrier as they crashed in a heap. The sky danced sickly before them, and the beast's wings convulsed in frantic jolts.  
  
Nanaki was first to regain a grip. It was then he realized that he had a useless hold on the dragon. Now his paws were set firrmly on his wings, but the good that would do---the dragon was too strong for him.  
  
It suddenly occured to him.....that he wasn't going to do this by himself.  
  
"Won't give up 'till yer gone, pup?" He jumped in the air, throwing Nanaki upside-down for a scant two seconds by his paws and teeth. The hold was tight enough that it kept him locked there, bouncing freely and precariously in a fast-blowing wind. He scratched the air for a hold with his paws but the dragon thwacked him with the tail, stunning him long enough that he'd never reach the other wing. Between stunnings, Nanaki could see the grin with his one glaring eye. It was the same grin on the rare occasion that Cid was in a good mood. Nanaki pushed it aside. Worry about what that could imply..what that could change about his condition..to re-make him friend or keep him foe. Had to concentrate. He ransacked his brains---reeling from the last remnant of Psychic, like assembling a jigsaw when the pieces fall into a vent. Focusing on a blurred point. But his ears caught the groan of the concrete. They were coming up on the monster fast.  
  
Confusion can be deadly but transient. The chaos ebbed in his skull--- it lessened to a throb encircling his head. It didn't matter. He still could think. Reason. And..something more foreign to his nature.  
  
"I can impair the left side..." he calculated, his senses roused to feel where the temperature suddenly rose. There's where he'd act. Two strikes in succession would set off the reaction. Right...or not...he dropped. He caught the dragon's left wing, growling as he snagged the stretched skin already bearing blood forks from the lizard monster, weakening, refusing to open its jaws, gasping for air, a wheezing and groaning that violently shook the air.  
  
"Impudent little mutt." The left wing thrashed violently, but with the pain bursting through one in a renewed gush, he veered right. At that same moment, Nanaki activated the Restore Materia, shrouding the lizard that suddenly lunged from the surge of energy as the platelets tripled and the cells elongated and divided at an alarming rate, and the beast retaliated with a vengeance at the first thing it smelled: Draconis Rex.  
  
"Ya finally decided to play dirty..!" he growled through interlocked teeth, both sides of his visage contracting at the ferocious steel vice crushing the bones and nerves in the lizard- like appendage. The dog trampled on his face that jerked to bite the hind paw, but he'd already scored the windowsill. Maybe to gain ground and regroup.  
  
All this time Brock's hand was laying waste to the tangle of arteries and veins in the body cavity in a mad rampage for the heart.  
  
You're through.  
  
He'd just grazed the muscle when he heard a vengeful crunch and the impact of the granite-like folds of hide suddenly resurge and press against his wrist. It must have been the Cure...the dog or the dragon, whichever had the Recover-like ability.  
  
Goddamn it, one of them's on his side, he groaned as he greyed from the sliced circulation. He roared, his own skin tearing and bones crunching between the massive walls of tissue. How pathetic it all was...this close to rending the heart, the supplier, the most obvious life source along with the throat!  
  
I was there...It squeezed. He paled at the mottled grey arm---funny how humans turned blue when they didn't have enough oxygen. So he was gray. He almost laughed. That makes it hurt more. Maybe choke on all the spit you're gurgling. It takes more energy anyways. Maybe he'd laugh again once the whole hand snapped right off...  
  
He didn't get to find out what would happen if it did. Misty's claws dug under his shoulder and yanked him from the crevice. The bloody hand disengaged and he scrambled up the reptile's back, relieved, scared, and speared with bitterness.  
  
So close...from the red corner of his left eye he watched the two hide walls interlock. Another leap brought them directly behind the silver dragon. Got cocky again..he berated himself, jumping parallel to the squirming dragon and crossing the vertical surface to the roof.  
  
For the first time he identified the organisms.  
  
Gemini I and its companion, Red XIII...I should have taken on one of their forms...at the very LEAST..The tail was still wedged in his mouth. The organism was scremaing unintelligibly.....why had he not....? Unless...it must be that he intended it as a vaccination.. Then.....this miserable cycle should be terminable...He paused outside a window where the panicked shrieking of the building's occupants prevented him from discerning the curses and oaths inundating the otherwise inscrutable speech. Unless it is only a temporary immunity... a flaw in the...the design..The jaws pulled into a calculative grin...as long as I am in control of my brain...whatever... primal, underdeveloped organism I may take the form of..  
  
He could scarcely gnaw on the stretching, lashing, twisting tail when his feeble hopes that this was a temporary vaccine were dashed.  
  
Confusion swallowed confusion consumed by confusion ingested by confusion and confusion...  
  
...someone...the Gi..puncturing my brain...ten times...with a...horn of Black Mako..while strapped to a ..glass..wall....hair shorn...upside-down....she holds a drill.... .lapping...rain...from a...puddle..not unlike......a...di- element..Pokémon....parasite..feeding..on.... ...Chaos....burning...the...Gi.....  
  
The..memories are still there.....are not mine.....  
  
But the mutagenic instructions are blocked from the DNA for the time being..the repressor hasn't been inhibited...he reasoned, still chewing, clawing his way up as the wild protest fell on distant ears clogged with the dragon's own blood. ....Gemini....and .the one that destroyed my optic nerves...R-r--N--Red XIII--who...who could be left...? he wondered, a stream of drool winding out of between his teeth. A brash instinct dictated him to take a larger portion of tail to satiate his hunger and he clamped down again, the blood spurting in rivers holdings bits of bone that slid across the lower jaw. At that point, the dragon had it, and exploded into a paralyzed rage, his rolled-back eyes bugging so much it looked like they'd roll out of the sockets and all the curses amalgamated into one distinct feral cry:  
  
"HREERRGHH!!"  
  
The vice loosened and the dragon screamed upwards, the limp tail leaking a gold streak on the building's face.  
  
Of.....of course...Draconis Rex.  
  
Confusion cleared and hurtled the scientist into the depth of another memory, murk dispersing to reveal the leviathan underneath the cleared water.  
  
Clang  
  
Click.  
  
It overpowered him. All other memories receded to dull echoing, engulfed by iron bars, their forbidding presence betrayed by the rigid leaning shadows interrupted by the broken surface, a double obscurity---he couldn't see anything---he'd been sensory deprived for so long that he didn't feel the merest light that penetrated the blindfold. Even if he could see--- anything, he was too numb, numb and strained---they strained him beyond his limit. He was only a kid after all, sweating, tried out, almost gone. But it didn't result from that youthful hyperactivity.  
  
Each drop of sweat sprung from a needle---the haggard breaths from the scalpel, the mad contortion of his lips, hidden with a dirty rag, from the forceps. And from what he weakly remembered from before all this, that it was going to happen tomorrow, too. And it was going to get worse.  
  
He leaned heavily on the bars greasy from his sweat, the straitjacket they strapped around him muzzling the thing they put inside him..that voice...  
  
If...if he didn't think about it it wouldn't get to him.  
  
He let his ma's voice fill his numb and quaking head.  
  
Cid, don't forget to turn your lights off. You're too old to get scared of the dark and the bulb's gonna burn out.  
  
Okay, but you're going to have to get the new bulbs.  
  
Don't forget to fix the clock! All the neighbors' clocks are 8:48!  
  
The clock ain't..gonna be.....fixed. It'll stay 2:59 forever...  
  
Some good that did. It only reminded him that he wasn't coming home. And it only made the voice inside him mad.  
  
Forever. A long time to wait, Cid. The sweat froze him. Add the cold to numbness. He shivered against the metal rods that ran from ceiling to floor, damp and dripping and only making him colder. So much for trying to sleep, going to bed like everything was normal, like everything was fixed.  
  
The voice got all the more cantankerous.  
  
They're telling me that that's how long I'll have to wait before I can come out? Before I can spread my wings again? Before I can romp with my brothers like before? He leaned from the bars, sweat sliding down the corners of his sagging mouth . While you-----the most "useful" to thrm--no doubt they'd choose one in their image--can do as you please?  
  
What're ya talkin' about? We're tied up...  
  
'Tied'? He jerked the constricted hand. It scraped against his shirt that they tore up to get to the skin. You've got the gall to whine when it's just your arms that are tied, he spat poison. They've---locked me up too---and these bars are harder than iron. Me...I'm in your blood and your brain---right now I'm hardly more mobile than an ESSENCE... like..no more than a soul in the Lifestream. You may escape yet---I've got nothing to look foward to save a lifetime in YOUR body!! NO... He felt himself being knocked over from inside. His head spun as he hit one of the bars. The arms struggled violently under the straitjacket. I won't accept it!! Wham. Not this!! WHam. My whole life's ahead of me.... WHAm. I WANT TO LIVE IT!!! WHAM.  
  
They're at it again.  
  
Even with the straitjacket?  
  
The President will be disappointed if the boy cannot pass the physical exam that the SRAF administers. No reflection, no seocnd thought, no remorse. Pacify Draconis Rex.  
  
That's just asking for food poisoning. Should I have an anti-toxin on hand?  
  
It's not necessary. The effects should be purely psychological. That is, of course---the subject still retained proteins coding for a human digestive system.  
  
Splat.  
  
Sniff.  
  
Crawl.  
  
It's ro--The lie slipped off his tongue effortlessly.---grilled meat. Must be a poor grade---but it's the only food you'll get for a while---Eat it.  
  
Eat___it.....  
  
The fangs sunk again into Draconis Rex's shredded tail with a cracking crunch. A hack of smoke rolled out in a glut and stifled the dragon's roar soaring in decibel and frantic pitch. He lurched, snarling while a layer of his hide peeled under the grinding teeth.  
  
"Where is your pride?!" growled the dragon, the laughs haunting, lingering. "This oversized cave-lizard dares to bite a dragon-----TWICE--twice he had the audacity--" he snorted viciously through a mask of sweat, "--and you think it FUNNY?!" The laughing didn't stop, even if it was his tail getting ground and mashed, even though HE was getting bitten, torn up, the startings of getting EATEN. "Why do you have a death wish..?!" he demanded imperiously, fists clenched, straining one way, falling back another, going for the eye sockets a second time, missing as the head jerked, bashing the prey on the concrete. In that instant Draconis Rex gazed up at Nanaki, laying a paw on his comb, on the stone wedged in it. But Highwind wasn't there. He was laughing and gone. The left wing spazzed and jerked uncontrollably in stocatto. The other half fell lopsided, scared as all hell, perhaps for the first time in his life.  
  
It was then he realized in simple hard terms that their survival depended on each other.  
  
A euphonic groan blew from southwards. Almost out of nowhere. It was a scattered noise, one in succession sometimes, others in the same instant. At the most ten. They were heard before they were seen, low-flying blurs of a yellow-orange.  
  
The demon crouched over the precipice, on his chest and knees, the grasping fingers curled pensively around the concrete ridge. To attack again on vertical ground might land him on the street. He scowled coldly, impartially, like the prey crawling to the trap.  
  
Hurry up, Hojo. I want to finish dissecting.  
  
The dog lay with rivalling patience, nose-down at the half of dragon. The other half laughed, maniacally, loud. The threat reduced by half. All was left was to eliminate the other fifty percent. The euphonic music skimmed the clouds once more. Nanaki raised his muzzle.  
  
The blurs gained definitoin, their outlines sharp against the old night.  
  
Brock, Dragonite!  
  
Brock grunted and craned his neck upwards, bringing the rest of his crouched body with it. His tail instinctively raised in defense when he made out the draconic titans sweeping the horizon. He'd seen these enraged.....they flew faster when enraged....the slow rolling inverse arc they traced was cut off, made shallower, more like a Charizard would gain altitude instead of a Dragonite.  
  
One.....two...  
  
Are they wild? Misty asked, growing wary, her broad, flattened scales bristling as the marine substitute for fur.  
  
They're no more merciful wild than trained. Brock stretched his head backwards against the head of his scarred back, the wild Houndour howls menacing in his ears. A bit of hairless, peach to ruddy skin caught his livid eyes. Less if they're with humans, his mouth twisted in a sneer. So Hojo would have to wait to be dissected. He darted away from the precipice to the concrete center.  
  
"2nd Class SOLDIERs...." Nanaki growled with some trepidation. Five at the most, cut through his mind, that held a perfectly ordered arrangement of events, including a record of a good chunk of skirmishes, brawls, and battles. Five. Not more than ten...ever. Especially, the larger ones, with their solitary feeding patterns, like the Dark Dragon-----  
  
Dragons..these were dragons. So was his enemy. He turned around. The lower half of the tail was gone and the ends were bloody and frayed. The laugh- stricken half was silent. It was sort of hanging there with a hideous grin that etched his mouth. Fury etched the other half of the dragon's lips.  
  
"You'll pay for that insult, cur." The last "r" melded with that brutish and regal roar that forged his throne in turbulent clouds and turbulent hurricanes. He hurled half of himself from the concrete precipice and took flight, heading straight for the orange formation. Nanaki grunted and passed the demon, sea creature, landing on the edge with his tail unwound. The petering wind grasped his immature mane while he watched the enemy approach the orange dragons. Nanaki could vaguely hear the shout above the incessant rumble of the ground underneath. The behemoth drew nearer.  
  
The silver dragon stood suspended in the air, waving his arm imperiously while the other drooped under the weight of Cid's paralyzed head. All the while the orange formation continued coming, tank-like. "It's encroached on our sky. There they are.." He stretched his scaly arm towards the top of the building. "Destroy them if you still call yourself a dragon."  
  
"Brrrrrmmm..."  
  
The bellow turned from euphonic to cacophanic, and Draconis Rex wheezed at a striking blow to his gut as well as his ego, like a granite wall collided into him. Instead of deflating his pride it exploded his wrath, spiralling his agression to stratospheric heights. He rushed vengefully upon the lumbersome dragons, one set of teeth bared, the tongue flaring and his clawed fist quaking in their path. Two broke from the formation, and the secret behind their allegiance unveiled its cold, mechanical face as it unsheathed a sword and scored his right wing.  
  
Half of the dragon dropped, Cid's lead weight dragging him down like someone chained to a ball.  
  
Nanaki now crouched on his paws, leaning over watching the dragon plunge, and recover barely as he scraped his body on the pavement, gliding sideways, sluggish and deflated. He turned, watching over the building's side while loping for the human door. Before he sprinted halfway the distance, the bellow thundered, no longer distant but directly overhead.  
  
"Breeeeeooo!!!!!"  
  
He swung his lupine head over his shoulder to catch the barricade of orange. The demon seemed to see it too because he had given up bending over the edge and he and the sea monster scrambled, finding the exit an eight story drop. They hurtled over the edge-- whether they slipped or jumped down he couldn't tell. The concrete thundered under him as the lizard's fore claws nailed the roof. The blast hit simultaneously.  
  
Flamethrower scorched the edge and the reptillian hand clutching the roof's brink. They hit altogether and separate, in succession and in unison, the fire breaking against the layers and layers of hide proof against all unaltered element. Nanaki yelped as he leaped over and crouched under the flame blasts, the lightning bolts wiring the air pressed on him, the ice that shattered a corner that he leaped away from, only to encounter the target itself that clawed for its meat as it dragged its torso over the ridge. The dragons ovalled, attacking the lizard with their maximum energy, the three primary hues a multi-colored melange against night's black robes.  
  
The fire was concentrated at the corner. Nanaki grabbed his opportunity and broke for the human door, sliding in a slant as he made the man-made exit, howling at the vengeful debris that attacked his flank, roused from the splitting energy beam that blasted a ragged hole in the roof.  
  
"What did the Shin-Ra want...?" the dog inquired, stopping to shake his coat at the foot of the miniature flight of wood steps. He heard no more thunder overhead. "Did they kill it---?" He gazed wide-eyed over his raised shoulder before he plugged on past the elevator, winding a shortcut over the stair railing and from there, a flight down. He turned his ear and heard the groaning bellow of the departing threat. That convinced him, and with that eliminated his thoughts rotated to the dragon." He licked his chops free of a perplexed drool and his ears flattened in chiding embarassment. "That was bad judgement to even try." He dragged his red tail behind him as he jumped another flight, in front of a deserted hallway. "To trust him again when he's practically on the other side?" He lowered his head, his great shoulders sagging. His arched spine shuddered with a growl as he turned a yellow eye towards the non-visible exit. Flight, hall, flight, hall, and not a human in sight. They must have evacuated. And the monster, dead. But--- Cid..why was he loping? He should be sprinting.."What good would that do?" Nanaki asked, slowing down to a lope again as he bounded the fifth floor."He could have gone anywhere. Almost like keeping up with Ultima Weapon...only that "Ultima Weapon was another enemy. We had to destroy it because it threatened to destroy Corel--" Down a floor. "Midgar..." Down a floor. "Gongaga...." and the Canyon.".That brought him to the door, smeared with handprints. They must have evacuated in a panic. He nosed open the doors. Door....the entire purpose of reclaiming Cid was to recruit more man---power to find a portal to the Planet.  
  
First mission failed.  
  
No sooner had he exited, pushing himself foward instead of dwelling on the debacle, he came upon the cops blocking off the road emptied of ambulance and bronze mutants-----the only vehicle there was the fire engine--solitary and pathetic under the laughing blaze-----and the long, malformed shadows. A growl climbed his throat as he approached them at a run, trampling over ash piles, scattered debris, and scattered weapons. Before he could find Cid surely he'd have to combat them.. the stationary but lethal umbrage that stood gazing at an empty point on the building, confused, choking on their bitterness, one form of justice robbing them of theirs.  
  
The rivers that choke flow without drying up.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED.....  
  
*~*~*  
  
A/N: Whoa, it's getting harder to finish each chapter..oO I hope that's not a bad sign. Watch the fate of Hojo (and maybe other people?) in chapter 29, where the curtain closes? on the career of the infamous scientist. And in chapter 30...look foward to Vincent trying to get a tan in the rain...or not. ^_^; Either way, the madness goes on as Nanaki and our heroes join forces. Until next time... 


End file.
